On the eve of the launch of Tesla Robotaxi's driverless taxi (October 10 local time), Baidu, a Chinese technology company, plans to enter the overseas market with its self driving taxi Apollo Go.
On October 9, the reporter of China Business News learned that Apollo Go, Baidu's self driving taxi service, is planning to go to sea and will release the Apollo open platform 10.0, which is equipped with Baidu's latest big model of self driving, ADFM.
Previously, it was reported that Baidu had begun to discuss with foreign automobile manufacturers, online car hailing platforms and other technology companies to deploy Apollo Go overseas through local partners. But the time and location of the overseas joint venture have not yet been finalized. There is also news that Apollo Go will land in Hong Kong, China.
First Financial reporter asked Baidu about the plan of Apollo Go to go to sea, but no response was received as of press release. In fact, not only Baidu, but also several autonomous driving companies including Komatsu Zhixing and Wenyuan Zhixing have been expanding into overseas markets, conducting autonomous vehicle testing and commercial operation services in countries such as the United States, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. But like all other overseas businesses, it faces challenges including policies, user habits, localization, and more.
Previously, road tests have been conducted in the United States
Travel services are seen as a key scenario for the commercialization of autonomous driving. Before going to sea, Baidu Unmanned Vehicle Travel Service Apollo Go has carried out manned test operation service in limited areas and time in 11 cities in China, including Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, Yangquan, Hefei, Changsha, etc.
According to Baidu's latest financial report, in the second quarter of 2024, Baidu's automatic driving service, Apollo Go, supplied about 899000 automatic driving orders, a year-on-year increase of 26%, with a total service volume of more than 7 million. And Baidu's sixth generation autonomous vehicle RT6 has begun large-scale unmanned road testing.
In July this year, the operation of Apollo Go in Wuhan attracted market attention. Baidu had predicted that it was expected to enter a profitable period in Wuhan in 2025. Behind the profitability, the cost of the 6th generation Apollo Go unmanned vehicle dropped by 60% compared with the 5th generation, and the price was about 204600 yuan.
With the support of technology maturity and policies, as well as the large-scale testing of roads in multiple cities in China and the sharp reduction of costs, the business model of Apollo Go has been preliminarily verified. At this time, it is the critical stage to evaluate the global market competition and the opportunity to sail.
Baidu did not disclose the specific countries and partner companies for going global. At present, the countries mainly conducting autonomous driving tests are concentrated in China and the United States. California is one of the first regions to allow autonomous vehicle to be tested. In addition, Arizona, Nevada and other regions have also successively opened the test and road of autonomous vehicle.
Taking the United States as an example, according to a reporter from First Financial News, Baidu obtained the 15th autonomous driving road test license plate issued by California in 2016. By early January 2018, Baidu had tested Apollo 2.0 unmanned vehicles on California roads for the first time.
The First Financial News reporter once test drove L3 and L4 level Baidu unmanned vehicles in Silicon Valley, including Lincoln MK series L4 level unmanned vehicles and L3 level unmanned vehicles jointly developed by domestic new energy vehicle intelligent travel platform Panda Car and Baidu. The test range includes public roads within a few kilometers near the Sunnyvale R&D center in the United States and closed roads within the Baidu R&D center park, including lane changing, waiting for red lights, avoidance, turning, etc., all of which are independently completed by unmanned vehicles, with a speed of about 50 kilometers per hour.
Beijing and Silicon Valley have a time difference of 16 hours, and our working hours are day and night. Therefore, our daily work routine is to conduct research and development in Beijing and then immediately test in Silicon Valley, and then conduct research and development in Silicon Valley and then immediately test in Beijing. It can be said that we work day and night, racing against time, "said Wang Jingao, the head of Apollp platform research and development and co-founder of the autonomous driving startup Yunjizhixing, to First Financial reporters.
However, Baidu still focuses on research and development and road testing in the United States. With the continuous maturity of automatic driving technology and the promotion of commercial operation of Apollo Go, Baidu is expected to replicate this experience to the American market, further promoting the overseas commercialization of automatic driving technology.
In addition to the US market, a few years ago Baidu also collaborated with SoftBank Group's subsidiary SB Drive and Golden Dragon to achieve small-scale supply of Apollon (autonomous electric vehicles) for operation in Japan.
With the continuous development of automatic driving technology, governments in many countries are also gradually improving relevant laws and regulations. At present, Japan, Singapore and several European countries, such as France, have also allowed autonomous vehicle to be tested and put on the road to varying degrees.
An insider told the reporter that if Baidu wants to enter the above market, it first needs to pass the local test license, operation license, data protection regulations, privacy policy, etc., including autonomous vehicle, which usually requires a lot of time and resources for compliance review and adjustment.
In addition, it is necessary to build a localized operation team, understand local market demand and user habits, and provide autonomous driving travel services that are in line with local characteristics, including communication and cooperation with local partners, optimization of service processes, and other aspects.
Autonomous driving opens the 'second half' of the competition
Having gone through the "first half" of technological verification, the competition for the "second half" of autonomous driving has begun, and commercial operation is becoming the focus of the development of the autonomous driving industry.
According to Frost& Sullivan predicts that with technological advancements, favorable policies, and cost reductions, Robotaxi will achieve large-scale commercialization around 2026. It is expected that Robotaxi will be widely adopted globally by 2030, and the penetration rate of Robotaxi in China's smart travel will reach 31.8% by then, and 69.3% by 2035. It is expected that by 2030, the market size of Robotaxi in China and globally will reach 488.8 billion and 834.9 billion yuan respectively.
On a global scale, companies such as Tesla and Google are accelerating the promotion of Robotaxi business. The industry believes that the global competition for autonomous driving is becoming increasingly fierce, which has led companies such as Baidu to accelerate their expansion into overseas markets.
But there are already many competitors in the global market, such as Waymo, Cruise, Uber, Tesla, and so on.
Previously, Waymo expanded its services to Austin and Atlanta through its partnership with Uber; Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, has also restarted its autonomous driving services in multiple cities and signed an agreement with Uber to expand its service scope. Tesla will also announce the latest progress of autonomous taxis on October 10th local time.
Many Chinese automatic driving enterprises have also been ahead of Baidu Apollo Go to speed up the layout of overseas markets.
At the end of September, Wenyuan Zhixing and Uber announced the establishment of a strategic partnership to jointly promote the launch of Wenyuan Zhixing's autonomous driving vehicles on the Uber platform, and will first land in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, by the end of this year. A batch of Wenyuan Zhixing autonomous driving vehicles will be launched on the Uber app, providing services to consumers.
In fact, Baidu was one of Uber's early investors, and the possibility of the two companies cooperating in overseas markets cannot be ruled out in the future.
In the European market, Wenyuan Zhixing and Renault Group are committed to developing localized versions of L4 level autonomous driving minibuses that meet the needs of the European market, and are expected to achieve more product launches in the coming years.
In July of this year, Xiaoma Zhixing signed a memorandum of cooperation with multimodal transportation operator Kangfenggao Group, announcing the establishment of a strategic partnership to jointly promote the large-scale commercial operation of autonomous taxis and prepare for their subsequent promotion to other global markets. Kangfu Gao has a global network of over 29000 taxi operators.
Earlier, Xiaoma Zhixing had already carried out autonomous driving technology and landing cooperation in South Korea, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other places.
A practitioner in the field of autonomous driving told First Financial reporters that in terms of overseas cooperation, the industry's models include local Robotaxi fleets and services, providing customized autonomous driving solutions for local markets and users in various forms, with flexibility and adaptability, and focusing on meeting the needs of different policies, market stages, and partners in different regions.
Zhang Ning, Vice President of Xiaoma Zhixing and Head of Beijing R&D Center, told First Financial reporters that China's autonomous driving technology has the ability to quickly replicate and land, making enterprises competitive globally. The mature autonomous driving industry chain also lays the foundation for exploring business commercialization in the future. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the development of autonomous driving technology and has introduced a series of supportive policies and regulatory standards, providing a favorable policy environment for the research and application of autonomous driving technology. At the same time, the Chinese government actively promotes international cooperation and exchanges in autonomous driving technology, providing strong support for Chinese enterprises to explore overseas markets.
The countries where we have landed have a strong willingness to develop autonomous driving technology and have corresponding open policies, willing to embrace technology. Compared with China and the United States, these countries are in a relatively early or blank stage of technological and industrial development. On the other hand, the overall level of road infrastructure is relatively complete, with a foundation in the automotive and electronic components industry chain. At the same time, these countries are facing problems such as aging population and driver shortage, so there is potential market and demand for change. "Zhang Ning told reporters that this is the reason and background for choosing destination countries first when going abroad.
At the same time, like all overseas businesses, the main challenge faced by autonomous driving overseas is to quickly familiarize and understand the culture and policies of the destination countries and regions, and to ensure that the products meet local needs as much as possible without making significant adjustments or changes to technology and products. Respecting local customs and policies, truly integrating into the local community, is the key to sustainable development and expanding business. After several years of development, the generalization ability of L4 level autonomous driving technology has rapidly improved, greatly reducing its landing time and difficulty in new cities and regions.