It's easier said than done.
As early as 2019, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA), announced that a fully autonomous vehicle could be built within one year and 1 million Robotaxis would be deployed. However, it was not until Robotaxi Day on October 11th, 5 years later, that Tesla "went down in history" to launch Cybercab, and the landing in the United States still has to wait until 2025.
Interestingly, as the largest "friend" of driverless taxis on the other side of the ocean, Baidu (BIDU/09888)'s Apollo Go reported "going to sea" on October 9. The Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily said that Apollo Go planned to launch a driverless taxi service in Hong Kong and take Hong Kong as its first business outside the mainland market.
It seems that the heads of autonomous taxis in China and the United States are about to collide, and the global competition for autonomous taxis is about to unfold; But in reality, it may take two or three years for both sides to provide services in the same city and compete for passengers.
Cost convergence, technology divergence
According to the information revealed at Musk's press conference, the cost of a two seater Cybercab is less than $30000 (about 212300 yuan), while the driving cost is controlled at approximately $0.2 per mile, which is equivalent to about 0.87 yuan per kilometer.
The silver two seater version, wing doors, no steering wheel, no throttle and brake pads, and no rearview mirror, Tesla's definition of autonomous taxis strives to maximize Musk's "first principles" thinking and minimize the cost of car manufacturing.
Tesla's new car is a one-step solution, following Musk's habit of even removing the steering wheel and pedals, directly becoming a passenger vehicle, maximizing vehicle usage time, reducing traffic congestion, and truly focusing on achieving the sharing economy - what consumers need is not cars, but services that quickly move around the city, "said Lin Zibing, a senior practitioner of autonomous driving.
As a leading player in domestic autonomous taxi industry, Baidu unveiled the sixth generation of its Apollo autonomous vehicle, the RT6, at ApolloDay2024 held in Wuhan in mid May. RT6 is equipped with ApolloADFM, the world's first large-scale model supported by Baidu for L4 level autonomous driving; With a 60% reduction in overall vehicle costs, the suggested retail price is 204600 yuan.
Wang Yunpeng, Vice President of Baidu Group and President of Intelligent Driving Business Group (IDG), even described the comfort of the RT6 as "surpassing the Mercedes Benz S-Class and comparable to Maybach". Currently, the first batch of delivered RT6 has begun to be put into autonomous ride hailing operation in Wuhan.
Baidu urgently needs to upgrade and iterate its technology. Currently, most of the updates in China are related to autonomous driving technology, while Musk seems to have provided a new way of life that will eliminate a series of traditional practices in old industries, thus providing people with the simplest and most favorable service experience, "said Lin Zibing.
As Lin Zibing said, the costs of Tesla Cybercab and Baidu RT6 have been significantly reduced, and the selling price of over 200000 yuan has greatly reduced the fixed asset investment for large-scale operations. However, both sides have obvious differences in both technical routes and operational methods.
Cybercab adheres to Tesla's pure visual solution, without LiDAR; The RT6 has 12 cameras and 8 laser radars.
In the future, the profession of a driver will disappear, and every car will serve as both a means of transportation and an asset for revenue generation. Tesla will establish a dispatch platform and a unified automotive aftermarket - maintenance, data operations, and cloud services, as well as third-party application market development. A new era is about to begin, "Lin Zibing told Caizhongshe.
In contrast, Baidu's Apollo Go, which was put into operation in Wuhan, has canceled the driver, but there are still a large number of security officers in the background ready to take over the running vehicles at any time.
Each "drawing a cake", local priority
Tesla's autonomous driving technology has certain advantages, as it adopts a machine learning approach. In recent years, machine learning autonomous driving has become more like human driving, but there are also objective problems. Tesla's autonomous driving requires higher data and has a higher accident rate. Therefore, from the perspective of the safety of public taxis in China, I personally believe that Tesla's autonomous driving solution is difficult to popularize in China. "Pan Helin, a member of the Information and Communication Economy Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told Caizhongshe.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the Passenger Transport Federation, also believes that Tesla Cybercab has great potential for future development. It is necessary that Apollo Go is an important capital to verify its development potential.
But Cui Dongshu also admitted that it will take a long time for the main battlefield of both sides to meet, two or three years are not enough. Both sides' strategies should focus on local advantageous markets first, and then invest more resources in going global when the growth rate tends to peak, rather than expanding globally shortly after the business is launched.
"If Apollo Go needs to go to sea, who can invest in such an uncertain project overseas when there are supporting facilities at home?" Cui Dongshu said.
In this regard, Lin Zibing believes that the Apollo Go "Sailing" project has an objective need to further expand the market. Hong Kong is the city with the most consumption power and the highest acceptance of science and technology in China. It is also a strategy to face the pressure of taxi drivers and the government in the mainland to open up the mainland market once Apollo Go can operate successfully.
Lin Zibing said that "facing the pressure of taxi drivers and the government" means that Apollo Go was confronted with protests from local taxi drivers and taxi companies for putting hundreds of driverless taxis into operation in Wuhan, accusing them of "the original purpose of technology is to make human life better, but the reality is to make people at the bottom hungry".
At the same time, Lin Zibing pointed out that vehicles in Hong Kong drive to the left, which is different from those in the mainland. Apollo Go needs to adjust its software and algorithm, and the cost will be slightly higher. The advantage is that once successful, countries such as the UK and the US will drive to the left, laying the foundation for opening up the Commonwealth market in the next step.
"It is inevitable that Apollo Go will go to sea, but it may be separated from Tesla in the market competition area. After all, these are two different unmanned driving technologies. Apollo Go is safer and more attractive to countries and cities that pursue safety." Pan Helin said.
(At the request of the interviewee, Lin Zibing is a pseudonym in the article)