Vehicles equipped with self-driving configuration have been unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show. Behind this, the continuous technological innovation of major auto companies and related technology companies is inseparable.
What is the current stage of the autonomous driving industry?
Autonomous driving enters the second half and mass production is landing
In Nansha District, Guangzhou, a self-driving fleet is undergoing a road test for normalized trial operation.
Starting in 2018, this team has to conduct road tests for nearly 15 hours a day, and the current total road test mileage in the world exceeds 5 million kilometers.
Mo Luyi, general manager of Xiaoma Zhixing Guangzhou R&D Center: We believe that the first half of autonomous driving is actually over, and it is entering the second half of autonomous driving.
In the so-called second half, we talked more about the stage from technology research and development to the stage of real large-scale test operation.
The iteration of technology, the improvement of performance, and the reduction of the cost of related sensors such as lidar, all provide the first conditions for the realization of large-scale production and operation of autonomous driving.
Beginning in February this year, the self-driving company announced that the first batch of self-driving cars equipped with its latest generation system will officially roll off the standardized production line.
New players on the autopilot track are also constantly entering the game. On April 17, the first mass-produced model of Huawei's high-end autopilot, Polar Fox Alpha S, was launched, and it is expected to be delivered from November to December this year.
At the same time, DJI also officially launched its intelligent driving business brand "DJI Automotive", becoming another technology company entering the field of autonomous vehicles after Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Didi.
Lin Qingyuan, senior fund manager of Rongtong Fund: Human cost alone has a market space of trillions or more, not to mention many new markets, such as intelligent network connection, shared travel, and other new market spaces for shared entertainment. , Each market space corresponds to hundreds of billions or even trillions of market space, so various giants have entered this market one after another.
In foreign markets, in June last year, Amazon announced the acquisition of the autonomous driving company Zoox, and the total expenditure is estimated to reach US$1.3 billion.
In April of this year, American retail giant Wal-Mart announced an investment in Cruise, an autonomous driving company under General Motors.
Cruise said that after Wal-Mart and some other institutional investors joined, the previously announced financing scale of US$2 billion was expanded to US$2.75 billion.
Participants in this financing also include Microsoft.
The boom in financing and listing continues to heat up again on the autonomous driving track
Although the actual application of autonomous driving is still affected by policies, regulations, technical standards and other aspects, it does not affect the capital market's view of this field. This year, investment in the direction of autonomous driving is heating up again.
Since entering the investment circle in 2016, Xing Yaopeng has been focusing on autonomous driving related fields.
He told reporters that although the autopilot industry has experienced a period of turbulence in recent years, starting from 2020, the investment boom has once again picked up.
Statistics show that the total amount of financing disclosed in the autonomous driving market will increase significantly in 2020, reaching 43.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 136.9%.
Entering 2021, the popularity of the autonomous driving track will not diminish. In the first two months alone, there have been 24 investment and financing events, and the total amount of investment and financing disclosed has reached 17.64 billion yuan.
From the perspective of the types of autonomous driving projects that have received investment and financing in 2020, in addition to autonomous driving technology developers who are favored by investors, technological innovation companies with artificial intelligence solutions as the core, and new energy vehicles and travel solution providers have also received capital Great blessings.
In addition, self-driving chip developers, self-driving lidar and other related brands have also obtained good financing results.
This year, the secondary market also ushered in the first self-driving listed company. On April 15, the self-driving truck company Tucson was successfully listed on the Nasdaq in the future. Based on the final issue price, Tucson’s future valuation Reached 8.5 billion US dollars.
Lin Qingyuan, senior fund manager of Rongtong Fund: It can be said that the bulk of the current expenses are actually R&D costs. From the perspective of companies that are currently engaged in autonomous driving, the amount of financing is relatively large.
At present, Tucson is definitely still in the money-burning stage in the future. It currently operates less than 100 trucks on the road, and it can be said that it is still in a very early stage.
Even if it is still in the stage of burning money, the industry generally believes that commercial vehicle autonomous driving may be realized earlier than passenger vehicles. This has also prompted many companies to broaden their business boundaries. From passenger vehicles to commercial vehicles, trucks have become automatic. A new hot spot in the driving industry.
my country's autonomous driving may first legislate to guarantee the innovative development of autonomous driving
In recent years, my country's autonomous driving industry has developed rapidly, but lagging laws and regulations have also hindered the commercialization of related industries to a certain extent.
This dilemma may be broken, and the relevant legislation for autonomous driving is underway.
Recently, the Ministry of Public Security issued the "Road Traffic Safety Law (Revised Draft)", which added new regulations on the operation of autonomous vehicles in the content, involving issues such as the legality of autonomous driving on the road and the safety of autonomous driving.
If the revised draft proposal is passed, this will be the first time that autonomous driving has been officially written into domestic law.
Shao Yuan, Dean of the Intelligent Research Institute of Shenzhen Urban Transportation Planning and Design Research Center: The core of the autonomous driving legislation is to break through several of the most critical bottlenecks that restrict the commercialization of intelligent networked vehicles. Vehicle access and on the road In terms of legality, operating qualifications, definition of safety responsibilities, insurance compensation, and network information security, systematic breakthroughs in the above five aspects can be used to commercialize the entire unmanned driving and form the guiding effect of the overall policy. .
In fact, this is not the first legislative signal in the field of autonomous driving.
Not long ago, the "Regulations on the Management of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Comment)" publicly solicited opinions, and responded to many legal issues facing the innovation and development of intelligent vehicles, such as intelligent networked vehicles that stipulate highly automated driving and fully automated driving. Cars are not required to be equipped with drivers for road testing or demonstration applications; a new entry condition exemption system has been added.
Shao Yuan, Dean of the Intelligent Research Institute of the Shenzhen Urban Transport Planning and Design Research Center: Shenzhen has the power to legislate in the special zone, so Shenzhen has the conditions to take the lead in the field of driverless driving and conduct legislation. We have more than 1,000 unmanned cities. The driving-related electronic information industry, which accounts for more than one-sixth of the national scale, can be expected to take the lead in Shenzhen to accelerate the iterative and mature implementation of unmanned driving technology, accelerate the gathering of unmanned industries in Shenzhen, and at the same time in the entire scene. , To accelerate the landing application of more abundant scenes.
The industry believes that legislation can not only provide standardized guidelines and guarantees for various commercial operations such as the testing and trial operation of autonomous vehicles, but also provide opportunities for autonomous driving companies to make commercial profits.
In order to better realize the commercialization of autonomous driving, relevant companies are also actively carrying out trial operations to promote the commercial operation of autonomous vehicles.
Once the relevant laws and regulations are successfully promulgated, it will be the first to realize the commercial application of autonomous vehicles.
Source: CCTV Finance (ID: cctvyscj) Producer: Ke Chengyun Editor of this article: Zhang Shuang