WeRide, a global autonomous driving company headquartered in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, received the first national license for self-driving vehicles in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and also the first such license globally, giving WeRide a place in history. With the move, WeRide, which mainly offers level-4 autonomous driving solutions, is able to conduct various road tests of autonomous vehicles on open roads across the Middle Eastern country. Level-4 autonomy means the car can drive by itself in most conditions without a human backup driver. Backing the achievement are the latest self-driving technologies and their commercialization.
“From a global perspective, Chinese autonomous driving companies have demonstrated strong technological innovation and their ability to cope with various driving scenarios in different climates, environments and urban roads,” said Regan Luo, Director of Business Development for WeRide’s Middle East and North Africa markets. In the UAE, high temperatures easily lead to the failure of electronic components of self-driving cars. In response, WeRide quickly developed a thermal management system, which can effectively perform heat recovery and cold emission management, Luo said, adding that WeRide is one of the first global autonomous driving firms to launch robotaxis in Abu Dhabi, capital of the UAE, and has already served nearly 20,000 robotaxi orders for its residents.
For years, carmakers around the world, especially in the United States and Europe, have promised a world of self-driving vehicles, but it increasingly appears that China will likely make it happen. According to a report from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Co, China will become the world’s largest market for autonomous vehicles, with revenue from such vehicles and mobility services expected to exceed USD500 billion by 2030. It is predicted that by 2030, total sales of autonomous vehicles will reach USD230 billion and autonomous vehicle-based services will generate around USD260 billion in sales.
More than 15,000 kilometers of testing roads for intelligent connected vehicles, most being self-driving cars, have been opened nationwide by mid-September, with a total road testing mileage of over 70 million km, the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed. As of mid-September, 17 demonstration zones, 16 pilot cities and seven national car networking demonstration zones had completed the intelligent upgrading and transformation of over 7,000 km of roads nationwide. Guo Shougang, Deputy Director of the Equipment Industry Department at the MIIT, said: “China’s intelligent connected vehicles have achieved positive results in terms of industrial scale, key technologies and demonstration applications. “In particular, a batch of key technologies, including the new generation of electronic and electrical architecture, car operating systems and high-power computing chips, has been applied on a large scale in vehicles.” In the first half of this year, the sales of new passenger cars with autonomous driving functions accounted for 42.4% of the nation’s total passenger car sales, which represents an increase of 10 percentage points year-on-year, he added.
In July, the Office of the Beijing High-Level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone announced the launch of the commercial operation of autonomous vehicles. It is expected that a larger fleet of driverless taxis will soon become available in Beijing. According to a report by BloombergNEF, China will operate the world’s largest robotaxi fleet with about 12 million units by 2040, followed by the U.S., which is expected to have around 7 million autonomous vehicles by that time. Another report by global consultancy IHS Markit said that China’s self-driving taxi market alone is expected to reach CNY1.3 trillion by 2030, accounting for 60% of the country’s ride-hailing market. Jia Yuanhua, Professor of Transportation Engineering at the School of Traffic and Transportation at Beijing Jiaotong University, said the autonomous driving industry is nearing a “golden inflection point of growth”, as central and local government policies become more open and clear.
Bolstered by such a blueprint for connected and intelligent cars, companies like Pony.ai and Baidu have been operating robotaxis in designated areas in Beijing and Shanghai after clearing high regulatory hurdles. Other AI firms are also striving to improve autonomous driving technologies, including high-definition maps, smart cockpits and V2X, or vehicle-to-everything networks, which rely on sensors, cameras and the internet to keep drivers informed about road conditions, to gain a foothold in international competition. For some time now, they have been gearing up driverless technologies in minibuses, trucks, forklifts and aerial vehicles, which are expected to enjoy huge commercial value in a variety of businesses like industrial logistics, express delivery, food takeaway, fresh produce ordering and retail pharmaceuticals.
“China has been at the forefront of optimizing traffic and road safety. What is likely to follow once the technology is adopted is a rollout in more crowded cities where traffic congestion has been a deep pain point,” said Howard Yu, director of the IMD Center for Future Readiness, the China Daily reports.
