Autopilot companies don't necessarily rely on autopilot to feed themselves.
I believe no one has doubted the future prospects of autonomous driving technology, but it will take time before large-scale commercialization can be realized. Therefore, promoting the application of related technologies in the travel market is considered to be the most valuable commercialization method that can be foreseen in autopilot technology.
CTOEmilioFrazzoli of nuTonomy, an autopilot software solution company acquired by Delphi, has analyzed that in the taxi industry's cost structure, the driver’s labor cost accounts for 50%–70%, and the autopilot system can reduce the labor cost of the taxi industry. 80%.
In fact, participants in the traditional car value chain have ambitions and opportunities to eat the big cake. In terms of resources, the OEMs in the transition stage have obvious advantages; in terms of models, the market share of large vehicles such as Didi and Uber is high, and the model is mature; in terms of technology, the autonomous driving technology company has become a party that should not be underestimated. The forces.
The first to announce the commercialization of waymo
As the runner-up in the 2017 Automated Driving Competitiveness Rankings, Waymo has put the driverless car sharing service on the agenda.
In February 2018, foreign media reported that Google’s autonomous driving company Waymo announced that it will commercialize autonomous driving by 2018. It plans to produce thousands of self-driving cars and invest in taxi operations. Previously, it has been recognized on the rivers and lakes that the automatic driving will be commercialized by 2020, and waymo is two years ahead of this time.
Different from the previous autopilot drive test, a human driver was required to take over the control right at any time. To express confidence in achieving L4 autopilot, Waymo stated that when it is officially commercialized in 2018, it will no longer be equipped with human drivers. . However, this behavior may not be relevant to the current regulations.
It can be seen that Waymo is developing a self-driving operating system to upgrade the current taxi service. Its ultimate goal is not to allow passengers to steer the steering wheel on the premise of ensuring safety.
It is understood that as early as the end of 2016, Google co-founder and CEO of Alphabet Group Larry Page asked Waymo to convert technology into products and launch its self-driving cars as soon as possible. But due to the breakdown of the agreement between Waymo and its then-auto supplier, Ford, it was forced to postpone the plan.
In 2017, waymo launched an auto-driving taxi service in Phoenix. It is reported that 500 fleets of self-driving vehicles have been deployed. Waymo’s self-driving taxi service will also be the first to open up to citizens of the Phoenix metropolitan area and gradually expand to other areas.
Voyage wants people to work on the road
In April 2017, Voyage was split into an independent company from Udacity, an online education company. CEOOliverCameron and some of its members had developed automated driving courses in Udacity.
Unlike other technology-focused autopilot start-ups, Voyage decided on the goal of building a self-driving taxi fleet based on refurbished cars rather than developing and selling its own self-driving cars. Voyage wants to use automated driving products to enable people to work more efficiently in cars.
The Voyage was refitted from a Ford Fusion and equipped with a 64-line Velodyne lidar, 4 cameras and 5 radars. Now the company has two cars operating in the Villages community and the third car will soon join.
The test site selected by Voyage is also distinctive. Villages belong to the private sector. The roads are relatively closed, and the community has 4,000 residents, with an average age of 76 years old. There are also not a few travel requirements, and it is particularly suitable for the operation testing of self-driving vehicles. After the cooperation between the two, Voyage gave up some of the equity to the community and submitted data related to vehicle operations to the insurance company. On the other hand, the lower cost is also one of the reasons why Voyage chose the elderly community to test autonomous driving.
It is reported that Voyage's main focus will be on the development of awareness, motion control technology, and technology deployment. Technology modules such as high-precision maps and laser radars are outsourced to other companies, such as DeepMap.
Voyage's products are more than just autopilot technology, but also auto-piloting services. From this point of view, the way the company develops products is different from other companies.
Pony walking on two legs. Ai
January 2018, Pony. Ai conducted the first normalized test operation in Nansha District, Guangzhou, which is also the first time that China’s unmanned vehicle company has been commissioning unmanned vehicles for the public.
Pony. Peng Peng, the founder of ai, once stated in previous media interviews that the entire autonomous driving industry can be divided into three levels: the bottom is the traditional car manufacturer, and the top is the Durban, Uber-like traffic travel service provider. In the middle is Autopilot Technologies.
Peng Jun believes that the technology companies in the middle tier have two business paths in the future. One is to open up the upstream and downstream industries with technical strength and provide them with technical services. The second is to carry out travel services on their own.
In the upstream industry, Pony. Ai is preparing for cooperation with some car companies including new car manufacturers, but Peng Jun does not seem to think that cooperation with car companies can become a long-term stable business model. In terms of travel, Pony. Ai will build an autonomous driving team in the future. "But they will start from a relatively small area, such as a certain area of ​​a city, and gradually cover other areas, even the whole city and the whole country."
Peng Jun predicts that by 2020, there will be at least one Pony in operation in a certain area. Ai team.
Seeking cooperation with car companies
At the “Forecast/Technology Travel - GIIS2018 Intelligent Network Alliance Automotive Industry Innovation Summit†held on April 20th, the vice president of Jing Chi Technology, Zhang Li introduced in the speech, Jing Chi’s positioning is to do L4 level automation for the travel industry. driving skills.
Jing Chi Technology's automatic driving intention is also very clear, that is focused on the city, the use of driverless technology to achieve the shared car travel field.
However, in the operation of no taxi, Jing Chi does not want to pack. At present, the composition of the mainstream auto-driving taxi industry chain generally includes the host plant + driverless technology company + travel service provider. Jing Chi is also doing such an important cooperation. Jing Chi Technology defines itself as a travel company. The object of cooperation is the OEM.
For self-driving taxis participating in the cooperation and restriction relationship between the three parties, King Jin, the founder of Jing Chi, once predicted that “If Google wants to become the leader of the industry in the future, it will inevitably invest or control a company in the next two years. Car companies, or a travel company.†In the domestic pattern, Wang Jin believes that the mergers and acquisitions are likely to be car companies or technology companies.
Prior to this, Wang Jin had planned that Jing Chi Technology's driverless shared car production product will be launched in June 2020. It is still unknown whether Jing Chi has joined Baidu's Apollo platform and has made any changes to its own development plans.
Conclusion
It can be seen that sharing trips will become more important after the advent of the auto-pilot era.
In the entire industry chain, although autonomous technology companies are irreplaceable in terms of technology, there are upstream OEMs that seek transformation and there are ambitious travel platforms downstream. One side is the situation of Qi Chu, and the other is the technology growth period of at least 3 to 5 years without profit. At this point, the choice of technology companies may be as important as the improvement of their technological level.
From the point of view of the entire travel market, car companies, autonomous driving technology companies, and travel platforms are often linked to each other, and there are also business competitions among them. The shared travel market brought by drones has become a key battleground for giants.
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