From the main driver with a safety officer, to the main driver without a safety officer, and then to no safety officer in the car, the real driverless car is coming.
On August 8, Baidu announced that it has obtained the first batch of autonomous driving demonstration operation qualifications issued by the governments of Chongqing and Wuhan. Serve.
Since the launch of Robotaxi (driverless taxi) in 2019, unmanned driving has progressed layer by layer, and later came to the fore, staged a scene of Chinese-style lane-changing overtaking.
China and the United States compare the "gold content" of China's road tests
Currently, countries around the world are chasing after each other in the field of autonomous driving.
This time, Chongqing and Wuhan officially launched the commercialized demonstration operation service of autonomous driving without a safety officer in the car, marking that my country's technological innovation and policy openness have achieved the world's leading position.
In recent years, new energy vehicle innovation and intelligent networked vehicles have been highly valued at the national level in my country, with active leadership at the top level and greater policy support.
According to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, China has successively issued more than 10 national-level policies in the past six years to ensure the all-round development of autonomous driving from multiple perspectives such as digital transportation, infrastructure construction, development of intelligent networked vehicles, and standards of intelligent networked connectivity.
In recent years, more than 40 provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chongqing have issued corresponding management measures or detailed implementation rules.
Active exploration has been carried out in multiple stages from road testing, manned testing, demonstration operation to unmanned operation.
At the same time, the United States has issued five national-level policies in six years, mainly promoting commercialization through autonomous driving legislation.
There are many innovation points in the standard, and the supporting implementation rules are not perfect.
Like in June 2022, Cruise, a unit of General Motors, became the first company to receive a license for fully driverless taxi fares in San Francisco, California.
But its vehicles need to avoid the city center and can only operate from 10pm to 6am.
It can be seen that the participants and complexity of China's roads are many times that of the United States, and the "golden content" of autonomous driving in China's road tests is higher.
Open area Chongqing Yongchuan District and Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone are fully unmanned
A Baidu related person told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that Baidu's driverless vehicle operation does not cover all social roads in the two places.
"Users in Yongchuan District of Chongqing and Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone can experience Baidu's full driverless service. Baidu's 'Radish Run' has officially launched the paid travel service for autonomous driving without a safety officer in the car in the above-mentioned areas. Substitute Apollo Moon Extreme Fox Edition, and will expand and consider multiple models in the future." On August 8, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily learned from a Baidu related person.
The person also revealed to a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, "Currently, unmanned operation is still in the preliminary verification period, and the pricing follows the standard of special cars, and a certain discount will be given at the beginning: the mileage and duration are used as the billing unit, the starting price is 16 yuan, and the unit price of mileage is 16 yuan. 2.8 yuan/km; the discount is as low as 10% during the trial operation, and the operation time is 9:00-17:00”.
The basis of Baidu's full driverless operation is to obtain relevant licenses issued by the governments of Chongqing and Wuhan.
Zooming in to the entire industry, in July 2020, WeRide Zhixing obtained the unmanned Robotaxi test license, and started the unmanned test in Guangzhou. In early 2022, WeRide Zhixing's driverless minibus started unmanned passenger-carrying operations.
On July 20, 2022, Baidu obtained the commercialization pilot of unmanned travel services in Beijing, ushering in a new stage of "unmanned driving". On August 8, Baidu obtained the first batch of full driverless licenses in the country. This license is also China's first batch of autonomous driving full unmanned commercial operation licenses.
It took more than two years for Robotaxi to be approved for road testing to fully unmanned.
According to the requirements of the governments of Chongqing and Wuhan, "to carry out the unmanned operation of the whole vehicle, it is necessary to follow the process requirements of testing, demonstration applications, unmanned testing, and then to the unmanned operation of the whole vehicle. Take Baidu's fifth-generation vehicle as an example, apply for unmanned operation. , it is necessary to accumulate the mileage requirement of thousands of kilometers of bicycles, there is a certain passenger order, and there is no responsible accident, before the application can be submitted,” a Baidu related person told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
Safety Guarantee If a passenger invades the main driver's seat, the vehicle will be forced to pull over
"From a technical point of view, full unmanned driving belongs to L5 unmanned driving. The technology that the main driver does not have a safety officer but the vehicle needs to be equipped with a safety officer is more likely to belong to L4 unmanned driving. Driving is more difficult to achieve. No safety officer in the car will be the main development direction of autonomous driving in the future." Liu Ying, research director of the automotive travel industry of Analysys, explained to the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
But in the view of Jiang Han, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, "It is relatively difficult to change from having a safety officer on the main driver to having no safety officer in the main driver. It is a process from 0 to 1 that the main driver has a safety officer to the main driver has no safety officer. Driving without a safety officer to without a safety officer in the car is a process from 1 to N, and the development of driverless technology will inevitably undergo such a development and change.”
Although autonomous driving sounds cool, how can safety be ensured?
On social platforms, some users asked, "If I take a taxi, can I drive it myself?"
In this regard, the Beijing Business Daily reporter got the response from relevant Baidu people: "If there is a passenger maliciously grabbing the steering wheel in the car, the program will automatically check the scene where the rear passenger intrudes into the main driver's seat. Cars will be forced to pull over."
The person further explained, "In emergencies such as the sudden stop of the car, Baidu Apollo can quickly take over the vehicle from the cloud through the '5G cloud driving' technology to ensure the safety of the vehicle. This takeover can be taken over by the system's automatic detection, and passengers can call The button of '5G cloud driving' can also be operated."
Recently, relevant state departments have launched a series of support policies to promote the advancement and commercialization of unmanned driving technology.
On August 8, the Ministry of Transport issued the "Guidelines for Transportation Safety Services for Autonomous Vehicles (Trial)" (Draft for Comment) (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), which clarified that, on the premise of ensuring transportation safety, it is encouraged to use closed bus rapid transit. Systems and other scenarios use self-driving cars to engage in urban bus (electric) passenger transportation operations, and use self-driving cars to engage in taxi passenger transportation operations in scenarios with simple traffic conditions and relatively controllable conditions, and point-to-point trunk road transportation with relatively closed In scenarios such as roads, autonomous vehicles are used to engage in road general cargo transportation operations.
Commercially operating Robotaxi costs 43% lower than traditional taxis
From the perspective of commercialization, "unmanned driving without a safety officer in the car means that the cost advantage of autonomous driving can be better utilized. The cost per kilometer of a traditional taxi is about 1.89 yuan. Robotaxi with a safety officer The cost per kilometer is about 2.2 yuan, but the cost per kilometer of a Robotaxi without a safety officer is only 0.82 yuan, which is 43% lower than that of a traditional taxi, which is far lower than that of traditional taxis and self-driving taxis with safety officers”, Liu Shadow gave the Beijing Business Daily reporter a quantitative comparison.
Not long ago, when Baidu released the sixth-generation unmanned car Apollo RT6, it also calculated an account, "calculated according to the five-year operation cycle, taking first-tier cities as an example, excluding vehicle costs, the monthly cost of online car-hailing drivers is 8,000 yuan; The biggest advantage of the Apollo RT6 is that there is no driver, and the monthly cost of a bicycle of 250,000 yuan is only about 4,100 yuan.” However, the cost per kilometer of the Robotaxi without a safety officer was not disclosed.
According to the "China Robotaxi Industry Development Insights 2022" released by Analysys, the market size of China's Robotaxi will be 15.8 billion yuan in 2022, and the penetration rate of Robotaxi in the online car-hailing and traditional taxi markets will be 3%.
2024-2027 is the second stage of Robotaxi's development. The market size will increase from 85 billion yuan to 139 billion yuan, and the penetration rate will increase from 15% to 22%. By 2028, Robotaxi will enter the third stage. It reached 196.2 billion yuan, with a penetration rate of 30%.
Going back to the attitudes of various companies to apply for unmanned operation licenses, "At this stage, when leading companies have landed in new cities, it is no longer for the purpose of building a sense of existence or doing demonstration projects, but for longer-term commercialization considerations." , industry insiders told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.
The accident determined that Shenzhen's landing "has a law to follow"
In the event of a safety accident in an autonomous vehicle, how should the responsibility be determined?
Different from the "Guidelines" of the Ministry of Transport and the "Measures" of Chongqing, the "Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") implemented on August 1, the identification of safety accidents has been carried out. Clarification: When the responsibility of the ICV is the responsibility of the driver, the driver shall be liable for compensation; if the car is fully self-driving, the owner will be responsible; if it is determined that the damage is caused by a defect in the ICV , drivers and car owners can claim compensation from vehicle manufacturers and sellers in accordance with the law.
"The responsibility for autonomous driving traffic accidents will be determined in Shenzhen. There will be 'laws to follow'." Sun Chao, deputy dean of the Shenzhen Automotive Research Institute of Beijing Institute of Technology, said that autonomous driving legislation has changed from "regulations around human drivers" to "regulations around machines" A major shift in the regulations for drivers".
Smart cars are essentially a special scenario application of artificial intelligence technology, and the legal status of artificial intelligence in practical applications has a relatively clear management method.
The industry expects that after the official implementation of the "Regulations", the overall implementation and legislative progress of my country's autonomous driving policies will be promoted from point to point, helping the intelligent networked vehicle industry to enter the fast lane of development.
The relevant person in charge of Pony.ai, a self-driving travel service company, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily that the above-mentioned regulations on the identification of accidents and violations of intelligent networked vehicles effectively supplement the existing "Road Traffic Safety Law" based on human-driven settings. It also provides effective protection for the legitimate rights and interests of drivers, operators and owners of high-level autonomous driving in the future, and provides a reference for regulating the healthy development of the autonomous driving industry.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Tao Feng Wei Wei intern reporter Yuan Zerui