Baidu actively avoids sensitive areas of car manufacturing? It says it will not export autonomous driving technology to car companies

The "soul theory" triggered by SAIC and Huawei is pushing the role of "autonomous driving provider" to the forefront. Baidu, as one of the major domestic autonomous driving technology suppliers, cannot avoid this discussion.

"Baidu's current development direction is not to export autonomous driving technology to car companies, but to promote unmanned travel in the sharing field." In response to questions from Economic Observer, Xu Baoqiang, director of Baidu's autonomous driving product operations department, replied.

"We will not export our autonomous driving technology to car companies" - this statement appeared for the first time in Baidu's external information transmission. Based on this, Xu Baoqiang believes that "we are unlikely to cause traditional OEMs to feel that their souls are in danger."

According to information from Baidu, unlike Huawei's cooperation model with car companies, Baidu has chosen another path, that is, avoiding the personal consumption market where car companies want to dominate, and entering from the level of shared car business. This move can easily be interpreted by the outside world as Baidu's desire to first enter non-core businesses to dispel the concerns of car companies about the dominance of the "soul".

Baidu started developing autonomous driving seven years ago, and during that time, it reached strategic cooperation with dozens of automakers. However, no automaker has mass-produced products equipped with its autonomous driving system, and the reason is believed to be that automakers are worried about becoming "OEMs". In this context, Baidu's statement of entering the shared travel sector is considered to represent a shift in its strategy.

Xu Baoqiang stressed that many OEMs are also deploying their own autonomous driving products, and Baidu Apollo's main purpose is to empower autonomous driving cars so that they can build better cars for sale. Xu Baoqiang pointed out that in the field of autonomous driving, Baidu and car companies have more of a "mutually beneficial" relationship, rather than an intention to occupy the "soul" of car companies.

In fact, compared with Huawei, how to dispel the concerns of car companies is a bigger challenge for Baidu, because unlike Huawei, Baidu has already started making cars. It has established Jidu Auto in a joint venture with Geely Auto, which may make car companies more wary of it. Xu Baoqiang also admitted that Baidu Apollo will also empower Jidu Auto in the future.

However, Baidu denied that there is a contradiction between its own car manufacturing and being an autonomous driving provider. "Baidu's investment in Jidu Auto and our empowerment of OEMs are actually not in conflict. As an independently operated OEM, Jidu Auto has its own product planning. It is actually in the same race as SAIC and is a commercial competitor," Xu Baoqiang stressed.

After the strategic shift, in the field of driverless shared travel, Baidu's layout vehicle is Apollo Robotaxi, and its plan will accelerate the implementation of Robotaxi.

"In the next three years, Baidu will deploy 3,000 unmanned vehicles in 30 cities to serve 3 million users." At the exchange meeting, Baidu proposed the deployment goal of Robotaxi. A week ago, Baidu Apollo Robotaxi "settled" in the fourth fully open trial operation city - Guangzhou, with the number of open stations reaching 237.

But in the industry's view, although Baidu Robotaxi entered the business from the travel industry and avoided the sensitive areas of car companies, the commercialization of Robotaxi still faces some problems. There are variables in terms of large-scale operations, operating costs, technology, personal safety, etc., especially when many car companies and technology companies have entered the field of driverless driving, what are Baidu's advantages?

Xu Baoqiang explained that Baidu's advantages are mainly reflected in technology and user reserves. He pointed out that Baidu has all-round technologies such as cloud storage and high-precision maps, and AI is Baidu's inherent advantage, so it performs well in system perception and other aspects. At the same time, he said that Baidu Maps has a strong user base, so from the perspective of autonomous driving collection capabilities and qualifications, Baidu is also in a leading position in the industry.

The lower price may be another "killer weapon" of Baidu's autonomous driving technology. According to reports, the price of Baidu Apollo Moon (an unmanned shared car released by Jihu Automobile and Baidu Apollo in June 2021, belonging to the fifth generation of Baidu Apollo) will be as low as 480,000 yuan, which is only one-third of the cost of other L4 autonomous driving vehicles. This is expected to truly bring Robotaxi into the operating cost range of online car-hailing.

According to the plan, Apollo Moon will deploy 1,000 shared driverless cars in the next three years. Since 2019, Baidu has opened shared driverless car travel services in Changsha, Cangzhou, Beijing and other cities. Users can experience shared driverless car travel services in these cities through Baidu Maps or Apollo Go App. According to statistics, by the end of 2020, Apollo Go has served more than 210,000 passengers.

It is worth noting that as Baidu launches autonomous driving products with cost advantages, a price war in this field may be about to begin.

In this process, car companies also began to conduct multi-faceted assessments and make final selections of suppliers. For example, BAIC Motors is currently cooperating with both Huawei and Baidu. "Arctic also needs to compare prices from three different suppliers," a Baidu insider told the Economic Observer reporter, and this choice is normal.