A driverless white Robotaxi fleet drove neatly along the road, with the logos of Guangzhou Automobile Group, WeRide, and Ruqi Travel printed on the body.
In the near future, they will provide services to Guangzhou citizens.
Last week, the three partners signed a contract to jointly promote the design and development, pre-assembled mass production and commercial operation of Robotaxi models.
This is one of the application demonstrations of the unmanned intelligent network connection system in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Unmanned taxis, unmanned minibuses, unmanned logistics vehicles, etc., together with drones and unmanned ships, will form new product sales exceeding tens of billions in the future and promote The public transportation industry in the Greater Bay Area is transforming and upgrading towards networked, intelligent, and unmanned services.
At the 2021 World Smart Car Conference, autonomous driving has become a hot topic.
Experts point out that data security and business models are still the thresholds that need to be crossed for autonomous driving.
Li Leyan, technical director of the Fifth Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, revealed that mandatory standards such as China’s intelligent connected vehicle autonomous driving data recording system are expected to be officially implemented in 2023.
There are four types of players in autonomous driving. Compared with a year ago, autonomous driving has appeared more among the public this year.
In June this year, unmanned vehicles from WeRide and Pony.ai participated in the delivery of anti-epidemic materials in Guangzhou, which was impressive.
China Business News reporters noticed that at the 2021 World Smart Car Conference, driverless driving has been implemented in segments such as Robotaxi, smart trucks, logistics vehicles, and smart parking.
GAC Group revealed in its announcement on December 14 its investment in WeRide that in the next few years, the two parties plan to gradually establish a fleet of tens of thousands of Robotaxi vehicles, with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as the The core radiates across the country and launches safe, economical and green self-driving travel services for the public.
WeRide founder and CEO Han Xu said that the two parties will work together to achieve the first breakthrough in the mass production of L4 autonomous driving front-end equipment, opening up a new era for Robotaxi in the next stage.
On December 21, one week after GAC Group announced its investment in WeRide, WeRide signed a contract to invest in Ruqi Travel Platform, a subsidiary of GAC Group, and will realize the commercialization pilot of Robotaxi through mixed dispatch.
Previously, WeRide has conducted self-driving taxi safety tests in Huangpu District, Guangzhou for two years.
Han Xu revealed that WeRide, GAC Group, and Ruqi Travel will soon conduct Robotaxi trials in Guangzhou, with more than 300 driverless cars.
He predicts that 68% of people will live in cities in the future, and autonomous driving will help urban agglomerations such as the Greater Bay Area solve public transportation problems.
Autonomous smart trucks that assist road transportation are also advancing commercialization.
Li Hengyu, vice president of Pony.ai and head of the truck division, believes that China’s road transportation logistics industry faces many challenges, including frequent accidents, rising costs and low efficiency.
Smart trucks can help. First, autonomous driving consumes less fuel than standard driving. Second, it can make up for the shortage of labor and reduce labor costs. On long-distance freight lines, if drivers use machines during rest time such as eating and sleeping, By replacing driving, the daily mileage can be increased and transportation costs can be reduced; third, a very large unmanned transportation fleet can be established to optimize efficiency.
On the one hand, Pony.ai cooperates with first-tier suppliers and truck manufacturers to manufacture self-driving trucks, and on the other hand, it cooperates with logistics companies to build intelligent logistics platforms.
Li Hengyu said that Pony.ai has obtained a Beijing test license and a high-speed section test permit. In the future, he hopes to reduce road transportation costs to 40% of the current level. In 2022, Pony.ai will launch 100 smart logistics trucks convoy.
Autonomous logistics vehicles at the port are already working.
Relying on the innovation of autonomous driving technology of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, it has provided a solution for nearly a hundred driverless horizontal transport vehicles to Guangzhou Nansha Port, and cooperated with Zhenhua Heavy Industry to help improve the efficiency of port cargo. Operational efficiency.
Due to the non-magnetic nailing solution, the terminal construction cost was saved by more than 40 million yuan.
“There are currently four main types of players in autonomous driving.
” Zhan Peixun, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Yiqing Innovation, said that the first type is OEMs, such as Xpeng Motors in the future. Want to make driverless buses? The second category is first-tier suppliers, such as Black Sesame and Horizon, which provide autonomous driving chips. The industry chain of autonomous vehicles is very long and there is a lot of space. The third category is vehicle technology solution companies. , the focus is on integrating the application side, this segmented track has begun to become crowded; the fourth category is platform companies like Didi.
Liu Yan, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that L2-level autonomous driving functions have begun to enter the early stages of market penetration, and the penetration rate is increasing year by year.
In the first three quarters of 2021, China’s intelligent connected L2 passenger cars sold 3.186 million units, with a penetration rate of 21.4%.
In recent years, Chinese enterprises and local governments have jointly engaged in business innovation and actively explored autonomous driving application services in many scenarios, from consumer travel to cargo transportation, Robotaxi, autonomous parking, trunk logistics, unmanned distribution, Various scenarios such as mine heavy loading and port logistics are constantly emerging and developing on a large scale.
The challenge of data security is highlighted. However, the "hump" that lies ahead of autonomous driving is still a security issue.
At the autonomous driving commercial application exploration sub-forum of the 2021 World Smart Car Conference, Wang Junyu, deputy general manager of Skyworth Automobile, talked about going to Baidu headquarters in July this year to test drive a driverless bus with a speed of 30 kilometers per hour. With lingering fears, he believes that security can only be enhanced by continuous improvement of technology.
Compared with functional safety, data security challenges are becoming increasingly prominent.
Li Leyan, technical director of the Fifth Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said for example that judging from current tests, many car manufacturers’ cloud platforms are relatively weak in protecting car owners’ information.
For example, after tampering with the user account of a certain car model, the data of other users can be obtained, which can easily lead to the leakage of a large amount of information.
This year, China has released a series of relevant policies intensively.
Li Leyan said that in March 2021, the Ministry of Public Security issued a draft revision of the "Road Traffic Safety Law" to solicit opinions on autonomous driving.
The "Data Security Law" released in June 2021 mentions the issue of data sovereignty and data export, which are the focus of intelligent connected cars.
In addition, in April 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "Guidelines for the Access Management of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products."
In August 2021, five ministries and commissions issued the "Several Provisions on Automobile Data Security Management."
In September 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Strengthening Internet of Vehicles Network Security and Data Security."
“What has attracted more attention recently are network security, data security, and software upgrades.
” Li Leyan revealed that China’s “Intelligent Connected Vehicle Autonomous Driving Data Recording System” and “Automotive Integrated Vehicle Data Recording System” Relevant mandatory access standards for intelligent connected vehicles such as "Vehicle Information Security Technical Requirements" and "General Technical Requirements for Automotive Software Upgrades" are expected to be released at the end of 2022 and formally implemented in 2023.
Since data security involves the safety and interests of individuals, organizations, society and the country, Liu Yan believes that under the current legal framework, it is still necessary to further improve the "Intelligent Connected Vehicle Manufacturing Enterprises and Product Access" "Management Guide", "Several Provisions on Automobile Data Security Management" and other relevant rules, regulations and technical standards, and issued implementation details to improve the data security management system.
“The technological development of intelligent connected cars is inseparable from a secure data interaction ecosystem.
” Liu Yan also said that the current phenomenon of “data islands” in the automotive industry is serious and needs to be solved through the application of Blockchain technology builds a trusted data storage and interaction platform, thereby creating an open, safe and credible data interaction ecosystem.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and relevant units are formulating the "Guidelines for Data Security Assessment of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" and jointly promote the development of voluntary assessment and certification of industry data security to meet industry needs.
Liu Jianhao, head of information security at Baidu Apollo, believes that the 2021 United Nations Automotive Network Security Regulations WP.29 have been implemented, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued intelligent connected car production enterprises and product access requirements, "It is expected that in 2023 Smart cars must pass information security access before they are allowed to be sold and driven on the road."
The biggest issue this year is car data security. Because car data is large in volume, involves many types, and is difficult to process, a comprehensive and multi-dimensional security protection system is needed.
Role reversal to explore new business models Talking about the challenges of intelligent connected cars, Liu Yan also said that business models such as high-level autonomous driving mass production, driverless demonstration operations, test area construction, and data applications It is still unclear. It is recommended to promote data sharing, explore application innovation, and promote industry docking.
Wang Junyu, deputy general manager of Skyworth Automobile, predicts that autonomous driving will be the first to be implemented in several fields in the next three to five years.
The first is taxis, and there are already self-driving taxi companies in the West; the second is logistics vehicles, because the routes are fixed and the road conditions are simple; there are also work vehicles, such as mining and urban sanitation vehicles, whose routes are also relatively fixed , the road conditions are not very complicated; in addition, for vehicles used in scenic spots and industrial parks, and in industrial parks as large as Foxconn, driverless driving can save a lot of labor costs, which is very cost-effective for enterprises.
“The largest market for autonomous driving in the future will still be family passenger cars, but it will take a long time to implement it, and technology updates and iterations must continue.
” Wang Junyu believes that, This process involves a huge investment. “Enterprises must first survive healthily, and that is the only way to survive until the day when autonomous driving technology matures.”
In fact, autonomous driving brings opportunities for automobile manufacturers to explore new business models.
Xu Junhai, technical director of GAC Aian New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd. revealed that GAC Aian will launch an L4 autonomous driving model in 2022.
Wu Song, executive deputy general manager of GAC Group, said that by 2030, GAC Group’s new energy vehicle sales will account for 50%, and GAC Group will accelerate battery industrialization; GAC Group will join forces to replace Multiple partners to create a low-carbon travel platform with more economic and social value.
Jin Jun, managing partner of PwC China’s automotive industry, believes that under the development trend of intelligent, electrified, connected and shared automobiles, the role of enterprises in the industry chain may change. exchange.
Many suppliers may build cars, and OEMs will also invest in chips, batteries and other components.
The connection of data, scenarios, and capital may restructure the automotive supply chain and create a new situation.