Josh Arslan/Reuters
Baidu’s driverless robot taxi service “Apollo Go” operates in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on February 24, 2023.
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Hong Kong
CNN
—
In China, it costs just $100 to drive a driverless taxi six miles. About 50 cents.
Self-driving cars, commonly known as robotaxis, are becoming increasingly common in Wuhan, the central Chinese city of more than 11 million people where the first major outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 emerged. They often have trouble navigating the roads, but Wuhan has ambitions to become the world’s first driverless city.
“There’s absolutely no need to buy a car,” a passenger in a white robotaxi sedan said in a video that has been viewed more than 80 million times on Chinese social media platform Weibo since last week.
The 500 vehicles operating in the city are owned by ApolloGo, a subsidiary of Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc. The company said in May that the vehicles cover an area that covers roughly half of Wuhan’s population.
A big selling point is price: Base fares start at 4 yuan (55 cents), compared with 18 yuan ($2.48) for a human-driven taxi, state media Global Times reported Wednesday.
The service, which launched in 2022, began gaining popularity in the first half of this year, and the company aims to double its fleet to 1,000 by the end of 2024. According to the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Bureau, there are currently about 17,000 taxis in Wuhan.
But the rapid adoption of driverless taxis is unsettling gig economy workers in China, where wages have stagnated due to deflationary pressures that have gripped the economy following years of strict coronavirus restrictions and a real estate crisis.
“As the Chinese economy struggles a bit, Chinese people are likely more afraid of losing their jobs, and this is just another reminder of the possibilities that job losses could bring,” Tu Le, president of Sino Auto Insights, told CNN in an email interview, adding that any significant job losses could be years away.
The Office for National Statistics reported on Monday that gross domestic product (GDP) grew just 4.7% from April to June, much slower than the 5.1% increase in the same period last year. Be expected.
Wuhan residents have also complained about traffic jams because self-driving cars don’t respond to traffic lights, and earlier this month one robot taxi ran a red light and struck a pedestrian, the state-run People’s Daily reported.
The backlash against the service, and Apollo Go in particular, over its alleged predatory pricing tactics, became the second most trending topic on Chinese microblogging site Weibo last week, with more than 75 million users joining the debate last week.
“Disrupting the market is the last thing they care about. They’ll steal your rice bowl,” one user said, referring to the ability to earn a living.
“Driving schools, road inspectors and taxis will all be closed,” said another.
An Apollo Go spokesperson disputed that explanation, telling CNN that discounts and local government subsidies are often used in the early days of a service to get people to try it out, and added that the “extremely low” prices were a temporary strategy.
Self-driving taxis currently operate on a relatively small scale in a few cities around the world, mainly in the United States and China, and the UAE has welcomed companies from around the world to test driverless cars.
Several U.S. companies, including Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet (GOOG), and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors (GM), are working on self-driving ride-sharing services but have faced setbacks recently.
Cruise’s permit to test fully self-driving cars in California was suspended in October 2023 following a series of crashes, including one in which a car was dragged across asphalt, leaving a driver with serious injuries. The company is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice.
Waymo recently had to issue a recall after two of its vehicles were hit by the same tow truck within minutes of each other.
Uncertainty about the safety and reliability of self-driving cars is casting a long shadow over the U.S. auto industry, but that doesn’t bother Elon Musk, CEO of electric car maker Tesla (TSLA), who has vowed to unveil robot taxis in the coming months.
China, already the world’s largest auto market, could one day become the largest market for self-driving cars, according to a 2023 report from consulting firm McKinsey.
The company predicts that with Beijing’s backing to roll out more pilot programs, the sector could generate $300 billion to $400 billion in revenue by 2035.
Governments in several major Chinese cities, including Wuhan and Shenzhen, have granted commercial licenses to companies to test driverless services, and automakers and ride-hailing platforms are also investing in self-driving vehicles.
Last week, authorities in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area began issuing licenses to self-driving car operators, including Apollo Go and Alibaba-backed AutoX, according to state media China Daily. Pony.i, a California startup backed by Toyota and Saudi Arabia, has also received permission to test self-driving cars in the financial hub.
Beijing authorities said in June they were “soliciting public opinion” on regulating the use of self-driving cars in buses, taxis and rental car services.
The Beijing Municipal Economic Information Bureau issued draft guidelines earlier this month saying self-driving cars must have a driver or safety officer on board or be able to be blocked remotely, and traffic violations should be dealt with in accordance with local laws and regulations, it said.
According to the People’s Daily, Apollo Go received permission in February to conduct trial operations in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen’s Bao’an district, allowing it to operate for a fee. More such trials are expected to be conducted across the country in the coming days.
