Editor's note: The Central Political Bureau meeting held in September 2024 proposed to help enterprises overcome difficulties and further regulate law enforcement and regulatory behaviors related to enterprises; We need to introduce a law to promote the private economy and create a favorable environment for the development of the non-public sector. After the 2023 Private Enterprise Survey, Interface News and Interface Think Tank will conduct another annual survey on the development status of private enterprises from October 2024 to understand the latest development trends, policies, and legal demands of private enterprises, and help them overcome difficulties.
With the booming development of intelligent connected vehicles, the accelerated iteration of intelligent driving technology is increasingly becoming the backbone driving the transportation revolution. The development of intelligent driving is undoubtedly the most noteworthy trend in the automotive industry, from discussions on high-precision maps, the integration of end-to-end large-scale models, to the latest NOA (Automatic Assisted Navigation) technology for "parking to parking" at this year's Guangzhou Auto Show.
According to China's "Classification of Automotive Driving Automation" standard, there are six levels of intelligent driving for automobiles, ranging from 0 to 5. Among them, levels 0 to 2 are auxiliary driving systems, and commonly used functions such as adaptive cruise control and active braking systems belong to level 2 driving automation. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the penetration rate of L2 level new passenger cars in China was 55.7% in the first half of this year. The Guotai Junan research report points out that next year, intelligent driving will continue to iterate, urban NOA products will continue to improve, and the penetration rate of high-speed NOA will accelerate.
Starting from Level 3 autonomous driving, the object of target detection and response shifts from the driver to the system. Level 3 driving automation means that cars can achieve conditional autonomous driving on specific road conditions such as urban expressways and highways. The robotaxi, which has been widely discussed this year, belongs to level 4, meaning that in the vast majority of scenarios, the vehicle can achieve autonomous driving.
In terms of industry laws and regulations, the release of multiple documents such as the "Guidelines for the Construction of Intelligent Vehicle Basic Map Standard System (2023 Edition)" and the "Guidelines for the Construction of National Connected Vehicle Industry Standard System (Intelligent Connected Vehicle) (2023 Edition)" has established the direction for the construction of relevant national standard systems.
On June 4th this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on the orderly implementation of pilot projects for the admission and on road access of intelligent connected vehicles by four departments, and announced the first batch of nine pilot consortia for the admission and on road access of intelligent connected vehicles, including FAW, SAIC, GAC, BAIC Blue Valley, BYD, and NIO. This marks the further improvement of policy support for L3/L4 level autonomous driving on the road in China.
Local governments are also exploring and introducing regional regulations for pilot projects on their own. In 2022, Shenzhen took the lead in legislating for intelligent connected vehicles and introduced the "Regulations on the Management of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone", which focuses on key aspects such as admission, registration, use, operation, and quality inspection for management. Last August, Shenzhen also released the first set of local standards for intelligent connected vehicle products in China, which strongly supported the local access of intelligent connected vehicles and paved the way for commercial exploration.
In other regions, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology solicited external opinions on the autonomous vehicle Regulations (Draft for Comments) on June 30 this year, and plans to support autonomous vehicle for urban travel services such as urban bus passenger transport, online car hailing, and car rental. The draft pointed out that autonomous vehicle that comply with the relevant provisions of the state and Beijing can carry out road testing, demonstration applications, demonstration operations, road transport service pilot and other innovative activities in accordance with the principle of ensuring safety and gradual progress.
The relevant responsible person said that Beijing will focus on solving the main problems faced by autonomous vehicle innovation activities in specific regions through legislation, and provide clear, transparent and predictable system specifications for autonomous vehicle market players of L3 level and above on the basis of the safety bottom line.
In fact, the development of intelligent driving in China has always adopted a gradual approach of strong policy guidance and strong regulation, relying on a parallel approach of policy guidance and enterprise technology safety verification to promote the development of local intelligent driving technology. Taking L4 as an example, currently, top domestic autonomous driving companies such as Baidu Apollo, Xiaoma Zhixing, and Wenyuan Zhixing have conducted testing and commercial operations in more than 20 cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Lanzhou, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Chongqing, etc. Among them, Beijing is the first city in China to explicitly permit the commercialization pilot of Robotaxi, while Wuhan has a larger scale of landing applications.
A representative from an autonomous driving company stated that in the past two years, policies and regulations have been continuously improved at both the national and local levels to enhance the external environment and regulatory efforts. Compared to 2023, the policy implementation speed in 2024 is faster. In addition, at the technical level, the technology of leading autonomous driving companies has reached a relatively mature stage, and the downward trend of hardware costs such as LiDAR and the development of large-scale models have promoted the application and landing of higher-order autonomous driving.
For the robotaxi industry, the next challenge is how to scale up costs and ultimately achieve commercial operation. Zhang Ning, Vice President of Xiaoma Zhixing, once gave a specific data that in cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the operation of Robotaxi will only reach the break even point when 1000 vehicles are deployed. Beyond this point, the cost of each additional vehicle will be lower. At present, the vehicles in operation in the industry are far from reaching this scale, which also means that policy support is needed for more regional opening to operate robotaxi.
Looking towards the future, the consensus gradually formed in the industry is that with the rapid development of large models and computing power, intelligent connected vehicles will enter a new stage of development, which will put forward more new requirements for corresponding regulations at the regulatory level. Yu Chengdong, Chairman of Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, previously stated that by the next two years, L3 level autonomous driving technology will have the commercial capability to operate on highways and urban expressways, and he hopes that national legislation can accelerate progress.
In the process of promoting the application of autonomous driving, the determination of liability accidents is the most critical link. When a car with assisted driving function is involved in a traffic accident, it becomes very difficult to determine traffic liability. The division of accident liability in existing documents mainly depends on whether there is a driver present in the vehicle, and is determined by the traffic management department in accordance with current laws and regulations. If there is a driver in the car, the driver shall be dealt with in accordance with the law; If there is no driver in the vehicle, the vehicle owner and manager shall be dealt with. The same logic applies to accountability and compensation for accidents.
On the other hand, many car companies are currently vigorously describing more technologically advanced travel experiences to stimulate consumers' purchasing desires. However, the vehicles currently cannot reach the fully autonomous driving level of their rendering, which leads to users feeling a disconnect between promotion and reality during trial rides and use, resulting in distrust of intelligent driving and hindering market education and industry development.
A smart driving solution provider told Interface News that they hope the government will issue clear classification standards for the various functions of smart driving systems, which will help manufacturers distinguish between the good and bad functions of smart driving systems. "On the one hand, it will allow potential investors and customers to truly see the true technical strength of each company, and on the other hand, it will also be more conducive to the recognition and acceptance of smart driving by consumers." The improvement of relevant regulations, policies, and industry standards can enable better commercialization of technology.
In addition, the intelligent driving industry generally hopes that the government will introduce more supportive policies. Multiple intelligent driving companies have told Interface News that they hope to introduce more talent policies and tax incentives for the intelligent driving industry to help companies open up opportunities and win key technical talents.
For example, building talent apartments and housing subsidies, introducing resources from research institutes and universities, promoting industry university research cooperation with artificial intelligence enterprises, and jointly cultivating professionals with AI technology research and application capabilities.
In terms of financing, influenced by international geopolitical factors, a group of US dollar funds have withdrawn from the Chinese market, and intelligent driving enterprises are facing difficulties in financing and high operational pressure. These intelligent driving companies hope that the government can take the lead in revitalizing the investment and financing market, formulate policies to encourage state-owned capital to gather in cutting-edge industries such as artificial intelligence, "play the role of government investment funds, develop patient capital, and solve the funding difficulties of enterprise development.