The world’s largest driverless car experiment is underway on the bustling streets of Wuhan, a central Chinese city with 11 million people, 4.5 million cars, eight-lane highways and towering bridges above the muddy waters of the Yangtze River.
A fleet of 500 taxis controlled by computers, often without a backup safety driver, hums along. The company that operates them, tech giant Baidu, announced last month that it would add 1,000 more robot taxis in Wuhan.
Across China, 16 or more cities have allowed companies to test driverless vehicles on public roads, and at least 19 Chinese automakers and their suppliers are competing to establish global leadership in the field. No other country is acting so aggressively.
The government provides significant assistance to businesses. In addition to cities designating road test zones for robot taxis, censors are limiting online discussion of safety incidents and accidents to allay public fears about the nascent technology.
Surveys by JD Power, an automotive consulting firm, found that Chinese drivers are more willing than Americans to trust computers to guide their cars.
“I think there is no need to worry too much about safety – it must have passed safety approval,” said Zhang Ming, owner of a small grocery store near Qingchuan Pavilion in Wuhan, where many Baidu robot taxis stop.
Another reason for China’s lead in the development of driverless cars is its strict and ever-stricter control of data. Chinese companies have set up crucial research facilities in the United States and Europe and sent the results home. But no research in China is allowed to leave the country. As a result, it’s difficult for foreign automakers to use what they learned in China for cars they sell in other countries.
Then there are security concerns. As China advances, businesses and regulators around the world have become more cautious.
General Motors’ Cruise robot taxi service halted its U.S. service last fall after one of its cars in San Francisco struck and dragged a pedestrian who had been hit in its path by a human driver. California regulators later suspended the company’s state license. Cruise has resumed limited testing in Phoenix.
Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, is testing more than 200 self-driving cars in suburban Phoenix and San Francisco, as well as nearly 50 in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Waymo was notified twice by federal regulators last month that they were reviewing its security.
Ford and Volkswagen closed their robot taxi joint venture, Argo AI, two years ago, but both companies are still developing advanced assisted driving systems.
Last fall, Japan suspended testing of driverless golf carts that travel seven miles per hour after one hit the pedal of a parked bicycle. No one was hurt. Testing resumed in March.
No company has made as big a bet on computer-guided driving as American automaker Tesla. But its Autopilot system for highway driving, introduced in 2014, and its new Full Self-Driving system, for street and highway driving, are not truly driverless. Motorists should keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, announced on April 5 an “unveiling of Tesla Robotaxi on 8/8”.
Many Chinese electric car manufacturers are introducing advanced assisted driving features to their production cars.
On June 4, Beijing authorized nine Chinese automakers – including Nio, BYD and SAIC Motor – to begin testing advanced assisted driving systems that go beyond Tesla’s fully autonomous driving. At least initially, the tests will be carried out in restricted areas and not on public roads.
Baidu and Huawei, the electronics giant, supply some or all of these automated systems to many Chinese automakers. Baidu also has a joint venture with Zhejiang Geely, called Jiyue, to make robot taxis.
The Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers predicts that 20% of cars sold in China in 2030 will be fully driverless and another 70% will feature advanced assisted driving technology.
It is difficult to predict the future popularity of driverless cars in the United States because it depends on how quickly automakers transition to electric vehicles. Driverless technology works much better with battery electric cars than with gasoline cars or most gasoline-electric hybrid cars. Electric motors can increase or decrease power with less lag and in more finely controlled increments.
In China, battery electric cars make up about 25% of the market, compared to 7% in the United States.
As with many technologies, including electric car batteries and solar panels, Chinese companies began developing driverless cars by studying American inventions, but then took a leap forward by commercializing them. In the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, more than a dozen Chinese companies established autonomous driving research centers in California, primarily in Silicon Valley. Some, like Baidu, have hired hundreds of software engineers. They got permission from the California Department of Transportation to test cars on public roads.
These companies moved most of their research to China during the pandemic, when Beijing closed the country’s borders but allowed key researchers to return. They continued to work in China.
“If you take California out of the equation, China’s autonomous driving industry would be nowhere near where it is now,” said Michael Dunne, a San Diego automotive consultant specializing in China.
China is an important market for Tesla and its advanced assisted driving technologies, such as Autopilot. But Beijing is now cracking down on any movement of this data outside China.
Mr. Musk traveled to Beijing in April to seek permission for his company to offer fully autonomous driving in China. It has agreements to keep all data collected in the country in China and to obtain high-resolution maps of Chinese roads through an agreement with Baidu.
China does not allow foreign companies to have direct access to high-resolution maps, essential for driverless systems.
Self-driving or driverless cars use tiny externally mounted cameras, or in some cases miniature laser systems, to collect information. Most of this data is processed by the car’s computers, which make decisions about the vehicle’s direction and speed.
Although most data from cameras and lasers installed on cars is not uploaded to automakers, the ability to track people and map sensitive locations has worried security experts.
Europe and the United States still allow manufacturers to send driving data to China, but that could change. Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. Commerce Secretary, said last month that the United States would propose rules this fall to regulate cars electronically linked to China. Europe has also begun to study the issue.
Baidu estimates it has a three- to five-year lead over Tesla in Chinese cities like Wuhan, according to Wang Yunpeng, president of Baidu’s intelligent driving business group. By driving fully driverless cars in these places, Baidu has learned how traffic works, block by block, he said in a speech last month.
From humid coastal ports in southeast China, such as Shenzhen and Fuzhou, to mountain metropolises in western China, such as Chongqing and Chengdu, cities across China are encouraging extensive experimentation.
Read you contributed to the research.