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Why 5G is considered an essential element in China’s autonomous driving road map

  • Industry studies have concluded that 5G can reduce the high cost of on-board equipment by shifting some computing power off vehicle
  • While the optimistic outlook sees large-scale adoption of autonomous cars by 2030, there is still no consensus on what the implementation will look like

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WeRide operates a fleet of robotaxis in Guangzhou, China. Photo: Handout
Sarah DaiandChe Pan

When Chinese autonomous driving start-up WeRide conducted a remote driving test using 4G wireless networks two years ago, the results were underwhelming: the top speed reached within safety parameters was only 5km per hour.

Soon after, WeRide was approached by national telecoms carrier China Unicom with an offer to help it migrate its driverless technology to next-generation 5G networks. Within a month, Unicom had installed more than a dozen 5G base stations on Guangzhou Biological Island where WeRide is based, and the safe driving speed increased to 30 to 40km per hour.

To be sure, WeRide’s vision of a driverless future is not to move drivers from the front car seat to a remote control room, but 5G’s low latency is a major advantage if on-board systems cannot cope with unexpected road events and remote intervention is needed, Zhang Li, a telecommunications industry veteran and WeRide’s chief operating officer, told the South China Morning Post.

Two years after WeRide’s 4G remote control tests, 5G network construction is picking up pace across China as the world’s second largest economy beefs up its technology infrastructure and digitalisation to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – which together serve 1.6 billion mobile subscribers in the country – built nearly 200,000 5G base stations by the end of March out of an annual target of 500,000, data from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed.

Next-generation 5G wireless networks are expected to transform a host of industries including online education, gaming, tele-health, remote working, live-streaming and e-commerce.

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