Joe MacDonald
Associated Press Business Writer
BEIJING (AP) — A driverless taxi developed by tech giant Baidu was driving down the streets of Beijing when its sensors detected the corner of a delivery van sticking into its driveway.
Taxis parked half a length away. “Sorry,” a recorded voice told passengers. The steering wheel turns on its own as the taxi goes around the cart. A Baidu technician watches from the front passenger seat.
Baidu is China’s most visible rival in a multi-billion-dollar race with rival self-driving car developers including Alphabet Inc.s Waymo and General Motors Co.s Cruise turns their futuristic technology into a consumer product.
Baidu and rival Pony.ai received China’s first license to operate taxis in April without drivers but with a safety supervisor on board. This comes 18 months after Waymo started its driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2020.
Established in 2000, Baidu was originally a search engine operator and has now expanded to artificial intelligence, processor chips and other technical fields. The company said that if it succeeds, its autonomous vehicle can make drivers cheaper, easier, and safer.
“We believe that the primary goal of autonomous driving is to reduce human-caused traffic accidents,” said Wei Dong, vice president of Baidu’s intelligent driving business group.
At the urging of the ruling Communist Party, autonomous driving is one of a slew of emerging technologies, from artificial intelligence to renewable energy, that Chinese companies are pouring billions of dollars into trying to create.
Beijing wants to join the ranks of the tech powerhouses of the US, Europe and Japan in building its prosperity and global influence. This provides the possibility of new inventions, but also exacerbates the tension with Washington and its allies, which regards China as a strategic challenger.
Baidu’s Apollo self-driving platform launched in 2017, followed by its Apollo Go self-driving taxi service three years later.
The taxi serves the driver to take over in the emergency situation of 2020 and has expanded to Beijing, Shanghai and other eight cities. Apollo Go said it provided 213,000 rides in the last quarter of last year, making it the busiest self-driving taxi service in the world.
For rides without a supervisor in the driver and passenger seats, the Apollo Go begins in a 23-square-mile area in the Yizhuang Industrial Zone on the southeastern outskirts of Beijing, with wide streets and few cyclists and pedestrians.
“It’s very convenient,” said Zhao Hui, 43, who uses a Baidu taxi in Yizhuang.
“It feels like it might be safer than a human driver,” Zhao said. “Sometimes there are some small objects, maybe some people have not noticed. They can find and stop.”
Other developers include Shenzhen-based Deeproute.ai and AutoX. Pony.ai was established in 2016. It is supported by venture capital and is testing for autonomous cars and semi -trails.
S & P Global Mobility Owen Chen said the industry plan “very actively providing consumers with autonomous driving taxis.”
Geely, a car manufacturer with Volvo Motors, Geely, Lotus and Polestar, announced a plan to connect to a satellite. Network equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is developing self-driving mining and industrial vehicles.
The ruling party is promoting automation to support economic growth by increasing its shrinking aging labor. Since its peak in 2011, China’s working age population has fallen by 5%, and it is expected to decline further.
“People are expensive,” Wei said. “Once people are no longer needed for this public service, costs drop rapidly.”
As for whether China can lead the global industry, “it’s a race at the moment,” said Pete Kelly, managing director of GlobalData Plc’s automotive division.
“But they can easily do that because of the way China makes decisions and deploys,” Kelly said.
McKinsey & Company estimated in 2019 that the potential market for autonomous taxis, buses, trucks and other equipment and software in China was worth trillions of dollars.
Kelly said that the earliest product is unlikely to recover the development cost, but it may become a “loss leader” selling other services.
Baidu said it was already selling navigation and other technology to automakers. Chairman Li Yanhong said on a May 26 conference call with reporters that the company expects total sales of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) based on agreements reached so far.
The company said it spent a total of 24.9 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) on research and development last year, but did not disclose how much of that went to self-driving cars.
Baidu’s report last year was 10.2 billion yuan ($ 1.7 billion) and revenue was 124.5 billion yuan (US $ 19.5 billion).
Baidu and its most advanced competitors have achieved level 4 in the industry out of five possible technology levels. This means that their system can run without the driver, but detailed maps must be loaded in advance. This limits the area in which they can operate.
The lower level of technical scope from cruise control (one available for decades) to level 3 (allows to avoid raising speed road driving). Self-driving robotic carts are already widely used in factories, warehouses and other tightly controlled environments.
Once self-driving taxis hit the road, operators must gather information about pedestrians and local conditions based on daily driving situations, a time-consuming process that will slow the technology’s rollout.
For maneuvers such as U-turns, the Apollo system can track up to 200 cars, pedestrians and other potential obstacles up to 110 yards away, according to Baidu.
Wei said Baidu is happy to let foreign partners adapt its technology to their markets, but has no export plans yet as it focuses on Chinese cities.
The intersection remains a challenge, Wei said. Pedestrians in China are accustomed to drivers stepping through crowds at crosswalks while turning on green lights, but robotic cars can’t do that.
“Our car will always make way for people and may end up failing to pass the lights,” Wei said.
Baidu launched its own self-driving car brand, JIDU, and unveiled a concept car in June. The company will target the family car market priced above 200,000 yuan ($30,000), Li said.
The company has also struck deals with three Chinese EV brands to make cars with built-in computers, radar and light sensors, rather than bolted to the roof. Baidu said its latest-generation taxis are priced at 480,000 yuan ($72,000).
To encourage others to use Apollo, Baidu open-sourced the platform and said it has signed up 210 industry partners and 80,000 developers who might create products based on it.
Apollo Go said it planned to extend the autonomous taxi service to 65 cities by 2025, and by 2030 to 100 cities.
Zhang Zhihua, a 29 -year -old indoor designer using Baidu unmanned taxi in Yizhuang, said that compared with human drivers, “there is not much difference.” “If you’re not looking at the front, if you’re playing with your phone, it feels exactly the same.”
