In Beijing’s Yizhuang district, driverless vehicles have become a common sight. Robotaxis weave through traffic alongside ordinary cars, while autonomous delivery vans glide along the inside lane as they carry packages to collection points.
Booking a ride requires little more than opening an app. Within minutes, a robotaxi pulls up with nobody behind the wheel. After confirming the journey on a touchscreen, the vehicle merges into Beijing’s dense traffic, navigating buses, cyclists, scooters and pedestrians with little hesitation.
The technology is still evolving. But a bigger question now looms: can Chinese companies turn robotaxis into another sector they dominate globally, as they have with electric vehicles (EVs)?
“What you see is a pace of innovation and adaptation in the Chinese EV industry that I don’t think is matched anywhere else around the world,” says Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“China’s EV capacity doesn’t just stop there. It actually spills over into other related industries through something that I call these overlapping tech industrial ecosystems.”
Government policy has also played a role. Pilot programmes in several cities allow companies to test the technology on some public roads.
But China also offers something else to firms that are trying to make the technology smarter: complex driving conditions.
Although driving data from China is useful, there are other challenging conditions abroad which could hinder any rapid expansion in overseas markets.
“In the Middle East, the temperature is very high. In South East Asia, there is heavy rain… and in Switzerland, winter temperatures can be very, very low,” says Zhang.
QCraft is applying its autonomous software to passenger cars, as well as autonomous buses and delivery vehicles. It says its buses already operate in more than 20 Chinese cities and it is expanding overseas.
“It’s very promising on the technology side that maybe the next five, seven, at most 10 years, it will get into everybody’s life,” says James Yu, the company’s chairman and chief executive.
Waymo, Alphabet’s robotaxi business, remains the commercial leader, operating paid driverless services in several US cities. Amazon-owned Zoox and Tesla are expanding more cautiously, while Uber has abandoned the development of its own autonomous vehicles, which had been marred by a fatal accident in 2018.
That gives them automatic “access to millions of customers that they wouldn’t have if they created their own app,” says Tu Le, founder of consultancy Sino Auto Insights.
“Having experienced Waymo and the WeRides and the Ponys… I would have to say the user experience for Waymo is much better than all the other competitors. I feel like Waymo is really becoming a standard mode of transportation for California,” says Tu Le.
China’s policymakers present automation as a remedy for its shrinking workforce but government censorship of dissenting voices makes it difficult to gauge opinions in the wider population.
President Xi Jinping has promoted AI and robotics as part of China’s drive to develop “new quality productive forces” – that will create jobs and boost economic growth.
And so there are incentives and impetus for companies to invest in the technology and expand.
One of the industry’s arguments is that autonomous vehicles could improve mobility for people who cannot easily drive themselves.
“If we can bring the cost down for a robotaxi ride so that it’s as cheap – or maybe even cheaper – than hailing an Uber with a normal driver, then it really helps broaden mobility,” Le says. “Elderly folks, folks that are disabled – these robotaxis really allow them a lot more ability to travel.”
Services were suspended for several weeks although Baidu has said it remains on track to launch in the UK later this year.
California regulators had suspended its permit following a 2023 crash in which one of its robotaxis dragged a pedestrian several metres after she had been struck by another vehicle.
They may also face growing geopolitical barriers. Unlike EVs, robotaxis generate a great deal of mapping, camera and location data. That makes them particularly vulnerable to national security concerns in overseas markets.
Despite the challenges of rolling out the technology, WeRide says regulators are becoming receptive to autonomous driving.
“We see very positive attitudes and very good policies and regulations coming out from governments both here in China and in some other international markets,” Zhang says.
For Chan, however, robotaxis represent something much bigger than a new mode of transport.
“China is trying to create this sort of high-tech economy that’s digitally connected, that’s AI-powered, and that builds on its existing strengths today in batteries, EVs, motors and other related technology.”
Source: BBC
