Shift Magazine - December 2020 - 17

As the Chinese government acted to
contain the coronavirus outbreak that ravaged the country in the first two months
of this year, the pandemic's impact on
the operation of robotaxis in these zones
is minimal.

FULL SPEED

This year, major Chinese cities such as
Shanghai and Beijing have significantly
expanded local pilot zones for autonomous vehicles.
Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-hailing service provider, and Baidu Inc., the
Chinese equivalent of Google, have capitalized on the opportunity.
In June, Didi put its robotaxi fleet into
operation in Jiading, a suburb of Shanghai
where more than 30 miles of roads have
been made available for testing connected and automated vehicles.
In October, Baidu opened its Apollo Go
Robotaxi service to the public in Beijing.
The service covers a network of about
430 miles, with nearly 100 pickup and
drop-off stations set up in residential and
business areas along the roads.
Autonomous driving technology startups have also seized the opportunity.
Momenta has obtained a license from
Shanghai for testing its robotaxis.
AutoX is a 4-year-old company funded
by China e-commerce giant Alibaba
Group Holding and based in the south city
of Shenzhen, where it has begun deploying fully driverless vehicles. In August,
the startup launched a robotaxi fleet in
Shanghai. It has also been licensed for
the same purpose in the south China city
of Guangzhou and the central China city
of Wuhan - the epicenter of the viral
outbreak.
Silicon Valley's Pony.ai, meanwhile, is
also testing robotaxis in Guangzhou.
Autonomous driving originated in the
U.S., and there is still a gap between
Chinese companies and their U.S.
peers in development of AV technology,
Momenta CEO Cao said.
But he believes it won't take long for
Chinese companies to narrow the gap.

Momenta launched its
robotaxis in Suzhou in October.
Rides are obtained via app.

"

If an
international
company wants to
be in the AV game,
they need to
deploy in China.
Bill Russo, CEO,
Automobility

"

" With the combination of government
policy support, attention of industry partners, 5G/V2X, China's technical talents, we
have an opportunity to catch up with U.S.
companies within five years, " he added.

COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY

In the view of Bill Russo, founder and
CEO of Automobility, the main attraction China holds for autonomous driving

technology companies is not the development of the technology itself, but the
vast opportunities for commercialization.
" If an international company wants to
be in the AV game, they need to deploy
in China. Because here they can deploy
more efficiently as a service business
model, and the size of market here is far
larger than anywhere else in the world,
whether it is moving people through
with an app-based mobility platform or
moving goods, " he noted.
To understand how autonomous driving technology will transform mobility
services in China, Russo said one only
needs to take a look at how smartphones
have changed the lives of people living in
the country.
Smartphones emerged earlier in the
U.S. than in China. But now, for people
in China, the devices are much more than
mere gadgets; they're indispensable.
Mobile phone payments, for instance,
have largely replaced cash in China,
Russo explained.
" That is what we are about to see with
autonomous driving, " he predicted. n

december 2020 * shift

17
http://www.Pony.ai
Shift Magazine - December 2020

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