Any industry related to automobiles will always lead to a battle between cities.
In the traditional automobile era, everyone is striving to be China’s “Detroit”, and in the intelligent era, everyone is striving to be China’s “Silicon Valley”. Now the fire of this competition has burned the autonomous driving industry, and every city wants to become China’s “Phoenix City”. That is, Google’s first city to realize the commercial operation of self-driving taxis.
How’s the race for autonomous driving across cities?
According to the survey data of China Business Industry Research Institute, the global driverless car market in 2018 was about 4.8 billion US dollars, and this figure is expected to reach about 7.03 billion US dollars in 2021.
So in addition to fighting for honor, there are also huge economic benefits behind this.
ON September 22, Wuhan issued the world’s first autonomous driving commercial license, and Changsha’s autonomous taxi project will soon begin to provide services to ordinary people.
According to our incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 18 mainstream players in this battle, and a clear cluster effect can be seen from this autonomous driving city map:
The Beijing-Hebei region created by Beijing-Cangzhou-Xiongan, the Yangtze River Delta region formed by Shanghai-Zhejiang-Jiangsu, and the South China region headed by Guangdong and Shenzhen are the three regions with the highest concentration.
Beijing and Shanghai are the most concentrated areas of technology companies, and they are also the earliest cities in China to open and standardize road tests for autonomous driving. They have also formed their own industrial clusters around these two cities.
In East China, the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Shanghai) Pilot Demonstration Zone in Jiading, Shanghai is the first national-level demonstration zone. It began operation in 2016, attracting a number of traditional and new car companies such as SAIC and NIO. .
As the first province in the country to carry out ministry-province cooperation to promote 5G Internet of Vehicles application demonstration, Zhejiang, which is supported by Alibaba and Geely Automobile, also has natural advantages. At present, a 5G Internet of Vehicles in (Hangzhou) Xihu District with Yunqi Town as the core has been formed. Demonstration pilot, Wuxi National Intelligent Transportation Comprehensive Test Base with “Smart Vehicle Characteristic Town” as the core, and National Open Environment Smart Vehicle Test Base in Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Area.
Jiangsu Province has China’s first intelligent vehicle R&D and testing center, Changshu China Intelligent Vehicle Comprehensive Technology R&D and Testing Center, and the province’s first 5G+ driverless public test road has also been officially put into use in Suzhou’s industrial park.
In September of this year, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui signed the “Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Tests in the Yangtze River Delta Region”. The test data in the region can be shared and the test results can be mutually recognized. The driving industry cluster effect is more prominent.
In April this year, Beijing released China’s first autonomous driving road test report. The report shows that since February 2018, Beijing has opened a total of 44 roads in 4 regions, with a total of 123 kilometers, covering from cities to villages to expressways. 85% of the traffic scenes in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. In 2018, a total of 56 autonomous vehicles from 8 companies drove 153,600 kilometers safely.
At the end of 2017, Baidu and Xiongan New Area announced a joint development of a pilot demonstration of autonomous driving intelligence. In May 2018, L4 autonomous driving road tests began in Xiongan.
In April this year, Baidu’s autonomous driving and vehicle-road coordination project settled in Cangzhou Economic Development Zone. Cangzhou will become the second pilot city for Baidu’s autonomous taxis. In early September, the two parties formally signed a framework agreement on autonomous driving strategic cooperation. So far, an autonomous driving cluster area with “Beijing-Cangzhou-Xiongan” as the core has been formed in North China.
As early as 2016, Shenzhen Frontier Industry Fund announced to cooperate with the University of Michigan to build an autonomous driving demonstration area. In December 2018, “Alphaba Intelligent Driving Bus” hit the road in Shenzhen Futian Free Trade Zone, which is the world’s first trial operation of intelligent driving bus on open roads.
Guangzhou, which owns Jingchi Technology, Pony.ai, GAC and Xpeng Motors, will naturally not be left behind. In March 2018, Guangzhou officially launched the construction of a demonstration area for intelligent connected vehicles and intelligent transportation applications based on broadband mobile Internet. It plans to invest 46 Build a closed test field for intelligent networked vehicles.
In addition to the above three cluster areas, there are also several cities leading the autonomous driving industry in the central and southwestern regions.
Known as the “3D Magic City”, Chongqing, as an “all-round test center” for autonomous driving road tests, is also actively deploying in the autonomous driving industry. In July this year, Chongqing Xiantao Data Valley built the first 5G-based L4 level autonomous driving. Open road scene demonstration operation base. At the same time, Baidu also set up Baidu Apollo autonomous driving test operation center in Yongchuan, Chongqing, to promote the local landing and operation of Baidu Robotaxi.
On September 22, the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Wuhan) Test Demonstration Zone was officially unveiled, and three companies including Baidu obtained the world’s first commercial license for autonomous driving, which means that licensed companies can not only conduct manned tests on public roads, but also Commercial operation is also possible. Prior to this, most of the autonomous driving licenses issued by domestic cities were test licenses. Wuhan’s move also made it stand out from many autonomous driving cities.
In October 2018, Baidu reached a comprehensive cooperation with Changsha City to jointly build a demonstration city for autonomous driving and vehicle-road collaborative innovation, and plans to launch 100 autonomous taxis in Changsha this year. On September 26, the Changsha Demonstration Zone for Intelligent Driving on Open Road was officially launched, which also became the first commercialized Robotaxi (autonomous taxi) service for ordinary people in China.
Although there is no cluster effect, the determination and confidence of the three cities of Chongqing, Wuhan and Changsha in striving to become China’s “Phoenix City” are not inferior to those of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and judging from the current results, they are on the verge of catching up with the “Phoenix City” of the United States .