Robotaxi Baidu
The artificial intelligence giant Baidu is back in action with the presentation of a new service dedicated to so-called robotaxis. Therefore, autopilot-equipped vehicles will be made available in Beijing - specifically within the Shougang Park district - next year, when the Winter Olympics begin. In fact, the innovative taxis will have the task of transporting tourists and fans during the days of the important event and obviously - for the autonomous driving sector - the arrival of robotaxis represents a very important milestone. The first service offered by the giant Baidu, equipped with an autopilot, will be Apollo Go Robotaxi.To take advantage of robotaxis it will be necessary to download and use the app through which it will be possible to locate a vehicle that is closest to the customer. When robotaxis are not available - immediately - you can call the service again and get the vehicle where you want. For the procedure it will be necessary to use the QR codes necessary to verify the identity and information of the customer relating to his health regarding COVID-19. To start the robotaxi - and close the vehicle doors - just press the button with the words “start journey”.
The vice president and general manager of the giant Baidu spoke about the milestone reached. Specifically, Yunpeng Wang allegedly stated the following:
Introducing driverless services is an important step in the commercialization of self-driving vehicles. We inaugurate the service after having conducted a long series of tests in various cities.
For the uninitiated, Baidu is one of the largest companies operating in the technology sector, so much so that - the Guidehouse company - has proclaimed it "the best self-driving technology developer in the world". In addition, some large companies - such as Tesla for example - are washing up to start the first collaborations with Baidu to give life to new software based on the technological innovation of the Chinese giant.
Baidu Launches Robotaxi Service In Outer Beijing. How ‘Fully Driverless’ Is It Vs. AutoX?
Baidu Apollo vehicles prepare to move passengers near Beijing with nobody in the driver's seat
BaiduBaidu BIDU , the leading search engine in China, has launched a robotaxi service in Shougang Park - an industrial park on the west side of Beijing which will be a site for the 2022 winter Olympics. Baidu claims the service is “fully driverless” and will be the first service in China where members of the public can hail a paid robotaxi of this sort.
The Baidu Apollo project is one of the most established such efforts in China. It recently reported over 10m kilometers of on-road testing in China, the first Asian company to reach that level. As we count the milestones to true deployment, without hard safety data, the best thing we can look at is how close a company is to the final goal. That final goal must check several boxes:
Nobody is quite there. Waymo is closest, though their service area is currently limited and they have not disclosed their ratio of remote ops staff to vehicles. In addition only a portion of vehicles meet criteria #4. Starship (disclaimer, I am a stockholder) ticks all the boxes but does small deliveries, not passenger service.
AutoX was the second company to announce progress here, with a service in a quiet suburb of Shenzhen. A test ride of their service by a member of the press impressed me, showing the territory is considerably more complex than Waymo’s service area in Chandler Arizona, though not as complex as more urban parts of the USA or China.
Yandex YNDX in Russia has offered service with a safety driver in the passenger seat. This safety driver can still hit a kill switch and grab the wheel, so it’s an odd choice — the capability of the safety driver to do their job is impaired, so it’s mostly a show of confidence, a partway step to removing the driver. Others have also done this, or done non-public tests with no safety driver at all. WeRide recently demonstrated test operations in Guangzhou with no safety driver, so things are moving fast in China.
Baidu serviceThe Baidu service operates over a decent but small service area. It costs 30 RMB, but many rides can be made free by destinations. (It is unconfirmed if anybody is paying on day one.) The biggest missing point, however, is the presence of a safety employee in the passenger seat. Baidu states this employee is not there to do any driving, and is simply there to answer questions and help the passenger feel more comfortable. However, they can of course grab the wheel in an emergency, though they are instructed not to touch it and do not have a kill switch.
In addition, Baidu has a remote operations center. All teams have those, but unlike most, operators in that center can actually remotely drive the vehicles, since Baidu can count on low-latency 5G networks in this region of Beijing. Baidu states remote operators are not constantly monitoring vehicles on a 1:1 ratio but did not disclose the ratio of remote operators to cars. Most remote operations centers, with the goal of having a large ratio between cars and humans, have the remote operators only provide strategic advice the car can use to plan its way around something which was too confusing for the software. Cars typically stop and request a remote assist which does not drive. Having remote drive ability can resolve problems faster, which is good, but depends on very good networking. It is not a good idea to depend on it to solve problems in real time, while moving unless you have one operator per car, which defeats the point.
While Baidu is to be congratulated for having the confidence to take this step, this service does not come close to counting as “fully driverless.” It may be able to get there soon, however. It’s not as bad as how Tesla TSLA calls their product “full self driving” and there is some bad hype inflation going on with certain industry players, who would probably be better served by underhyping rather than overhyping. Still, this project will teach them much as they deal with real customers. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, “no business plan survives first contact with the customer.”
AutoX’s service is closer, but it’s not clear how open it is to the general public. Some reports suggest members of the public must be approved, making it close to a wide beta. This is a fairly reasonable restriction, if for no other reason that most services have limited resources. In the future, robotaxi services which sell subscriptions will probably only sell to people who can make good but not excessive use of the service, though they will still probably take anybody on a pay-per-ride basis.
Rumors abound that Waymo will open in San Francisco or Silicon Valley soon. This would finish ticking their boxes. Waymo fares in Arizona are slightly less than Uber UBER . Obviously nobody makes any profit during these pilot phases, but generally it should be possible to make a profit with prices close to Uber but no driver to pay as long as other costs stay in line.
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