Explainer | These Chinese autonomous vehicle start-ups are keeping their eye on the driverless road
- The promise of a driverless future has attracted billions of dollars in investment globally
- The global autonomous driving market is forecast to be worth US$24.3 billion by 2025, up from only US$4 billion in 2016
In the car industry, the dream of high-level automation free from human intervention is as strong as ever. The concept dates back eight decades to when American industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes demonstrated an electric vehicle manipulated by electromagnetic fields created by placing electronic circuits along a roadway at the 1939 World’s Fair.
Bel Geddes later presented his vision of future mobility in a 1940 book titled Magic Motorways, where he argued that humans should be removed from the driving process.
Given the pace of today’s technology development, his vision could become a reality over the next decade. The promise of a driverless future has attracted billions of dollars in investment globally and is becoming one of the key applications for artificial intelligence in which both China and the US are seeking supremacy.
In December 2017, Beijing became the first Chinese city to introduce regulations for autonomous driving road tests, followed by Shanghai in March 2018. In April last year, Chinese authorities issued the first national-level regulations for such road tests.
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China’s self-driving RoboTaxi hits the road
China outlined its road maps to smart cars and mobility systems in February in a blueprint co-developed by 11 ministries, with the goal of achieving mass production of lower level autonomous vehicles by 2025.
The global autonomous driving market is forecast to be worth US$24.3 billion by 2025, up from US$4 billion in 2016. In the US, Alphabet subsidiary Waymo is leading the pack that includes traditional players Ford Motor with its autonomous division and General Motors’ Cruise, as well as start-ups such as Zoox and Uber Technologies.