The commercialization of self-driving technology is expected to gain momentum in China in the next few years, thanks to continuous technological innovation and considerable policy support, China Daily quoted industry experts as saying on January 4.
The self-driving industry is set to witness robust growth in the coming years. The market size of China’s self-driving taxi services is expected to surpass RMB1.3 trillion($188.6 billion) by 2030, accounting for 60 percent of the country's ride-hailing market by then, said a report by global consultancy IHS Markit.
Chinese tech giant Baidu recently announced it plans to put an additional 200 fully autonomous driving robotaxis into operation across the country in 2023 and build the world's largest fully driverless ride-hailing service area.
"The massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles across China. We are moving toward a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today," said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu.
Chinese authorities have rolled out a slew of supportive policies to promote the commercialization of self-driving technology. In November, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security unveiled a draft guideline to expand road tests for autonomous driving vehicles nationwide.
On December 30, Beijing granted its latest autonomous driving permits to two robotaxi operators — Baidu and Pony.ai — to test their fully driverless vehicles on public roads, with no driver or safety operator in the car, a major step in its autonomous ride-hailing business in the capital.
Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai has received permits to operate 100 autonomous vehicles in Guangzhou's Nansha district, charging fares based on local standard taxi pricing for its robotaxi services, reported China Daily.
Data from market research firm Research and Markets showed the global autonomous vehicle market was valued at $76.13 billion in 2020 and is projected to hit $2.16 trillion by 2030, registering a compound annual growth rate of 40.1 percent from 2021 to 2030.
According to a report from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co, China will become the world's largest market for self-driving vehicles, with revenue from sales of such new vehicles and mobility services expected to exceed $500 billion by 2030, according to China Daily.
Shenzhen-based autonomous driving startup DeepRoute.ai aims to make autonomous driving less costly. It has cut the cost of L4 autonomous driving solutions to less than $10,000 and applied them to its robotaxi fleet and medium-duty trucks, said Maxwell Zhou, CEO of DeepRoute.ai.
Commercial operation of self-driving vehicles will promote the iteration and innovation of technologies, and help enterprises explore reasonable business models, thus allowing autonomous driving technologies to create more value, an industry insider pointed out.
(Greg Gao)
