CHINESE entrants in the race to put autonomous vehicles on the road are bringing “robotaxis” online in the hope that a hired-car format is the key to unlocking wide acceptance of the futuristic technology.

It is expected to be years before cars that operate completely without human intervention are unleashed, owing to lingering technological, regulatory and safety hurdles.

But as China challenges US tech dominance, players such as Baidu, the Alibaba-backed AutoX and ride-sharing king DiDi Chuxing recently launched autonomous taxi pilot projects in cities around the country.

Similar efforts are under way in the US, and AutoX chief executive Xiao Jianxiong told AFP that the first fully autonomous vehicles could be on the roads by year-end.

Robotaxis or delivery services are considered ideal for accumulating the driving time and huge data cache needed for cars to “learn” and become safe enough.

Chinese consumers – known for eagerly embracing e-commerce, online payments and other digital solutions – are lining up for a spin in DiDi’s self-developed autonomous taxis under a Shanghai pilot project launched in June.

Underlining the work-in-progress nature of the concept, a staffer occupies the driver’s seat, ready to take the wheel if needed.

Da Xuan, a 24-year-old social media worker, leapt at a taste of the future.

‘Smooth’ running

“I heard that companies like Uber or Tesla were doing autonomous driving, so I was curious what Chinese companies were doing, whether they could go into production, and if so, what would the (riding) experience be like,” said Da.

“It was very smooth,” she said, adding that she feels safe in such a vehicle.

Test subjects use DiDi’s mobile app to plot a ride through suburban roads in a Volvo fitted with a crown of tech hardware topped by a spinning radar device.

The car confidently sets out, accelerating, braking, signalling and turning on its own in real traffic, as a female voice calmly narrates “Yielding for crosswalk” or “Your car has been disinfected”.

When a large truck abruptly swerved in front, DiDi’s artificial intelligence driver smoothly applied the brakes.

Like any student driver, however, it still needs practice.

At one stop sign, it braked so abruptly that passengers lurched forward.

And, any impromptu deviation from the plotted route requires human intervention.

But Meng Xing, chief operating officer of DiDi’s autonomous driving unit, said the AI system “is already smart enough to handle most situations”, and safety drivers almost never need to touch the steering wheel or brakes.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, known for his overly rosy predictions, raised eyebrows last month by saying the US electric carmaker could have a completely autonomous model ready this year, which analysts have dismissed.

‘Long way’ to go

Paul Lewis, who heads policy research at the Washington-based non-profit Eno Centre for Transportation, said hopes are being “reset” as the pace of the technology’s development disappoints.

“Technology developers are starting to realise the limits of AI and the benefits of the human brain in handling some of these tasks,” he said, adding that we remain “a long way” from driverless cars.

Xiao of AutoX, however, expects that a “sizeable” deployment of the vehicles – without safety drivers – could take place in two to three years, with regulations and technology being the main obstacles.

“It’s just a matter of time and effort to make it happen.

“There are no open scientific questions left to be solved.”

Tech giant Baidu has plans for autonomous car testing bases in more than 10 Chinese cities, including Beijing, with a 45-strong robotaxi fleet already on trial in the central city of Changsha, plying an area of around 130 sq km.

Its Apollo Park in the capital, which opened this year, has more than 200 vehicles.

Apollo general manager Li Zhenyu told employees in a letter that “the era of unmanned driving in traffic will definitely arrive”.

A Didi executive in June said the ride-hailing giant aims to operate more than a million self-driving cars by 2030.

“What we are trying to solve is the last 0.5% of problems… we believe in the future, we’ll be able to get to that point where we can provide a safer experience than a human driver.” – AFP, August 9, 2020.