Baidu's autonomous driving project has slowed down, is RoboTaxi the important market?

Baidu's self-driving minibus "Apollo" project has been reported to have its main staff withdrawn and product promotion has been stopped. According to people familiar with the matter, the project's input-output ratio is different from expectations, so the project promotion and sales are currently suspended.

However, some industry insiders believe that Baidu's "Apollo" project is more like a test, and its real purpose is to open up new territory for the RoboTaxi market, which has great potential in the future.

The field of autonomous driving has been cooling down since the end of 2018. Problems such as the difficulty of industrial implementation and technical shortcomings have slowed down the development of personal autonomous vehicles. Well-known companies such as Baidu Apollo, Google Waymo, and Uber are constantly adjusting their business directions to adapt to the latest changes in the industry. Interestingly, they have surprisingly set their goals in the same direction - RoboTaxi.

Why develop RoboTaxi?
RoboTaxi, at first glance, looks like the words "robot" and "taxi" spelled together, also written as "Robo-Taxi" or "Robo-Cab". Translated into Chinese, it means: self-driving or driverless taxi, a self-driving car service. With the advancement of self-driving technology, some car manufacturers or self-driving solution providers have begun to change their thinking: from allowing every user to have a self-driving vehicle, to providing self-driving vehicle services.

When it comes to the reasons for this change in thinking, each company has different explanations, but in summary, they are mainly concentrated in the following points: 
 

Technical issues. Judging from the current maturity of technology, it is still difficult to build self-driving vehicles. Although various solution providers have stated that they can upgrade vehicles to self-driving with a single click, there are still many problems in actual operation. 
 

Cost issue. Both autonomous driving solution providers and car manufacturers face the issue of cost. With the current public attitude towards autonomous driving vehicles, except for a small number of technology enthusiasts and curious people, most users are in a state of indifference. Therefore, it is still unknown how many users are really willing to pay for a self-driving car. 
 

Safety issues. The biggest concern for users of self-driving vehicles is safety. If an ordinary user has an accident after purchasing a vehicle, there is a lack of relevant legal or policy support for the division of responsibilities, accident assessment standards, and punishment mechanisms around the world.

In summary, some manufacturers believe that launching autonomous driving services is the best solution. In terms of advantages, launching RoboTaxi has the following three aspects: 
 

Although there are still shortcomings in technology, compared with the "one-click" upgrade, the technical complexity of directly building an autonomous vehicle through cooperation between solution providers and car manufacturers is relatively smaller and more mature; 
 

Since most users are unwilling to buy driverless cars individually, cooperating with car manufacturers to launch ride-hailing services is indeed the most appropriate solution. Users can experience the convenience of driverless cars without worrying about whether to buy one themselves. 
 

Individual users may be unfamiliar with the operation and make mistakes, which will cause difficulties in subsequent work such as accountability if an accident occurs. If it is handed over directly to the service provider, the responsibility can be divided and handled by directly connecting with the service provider.

Current Development Status Abroad
RoboTaxi services abroad are mainly concentrated in North America.

In August 2016, NuTonomy, a spin-off from MIT, became the first company to launch a RoboTaxi service in a limited area of ​​Singapore, and a month later, Uber followed suit.

In early 2017, Waymo, Google's self-driving company, began large-scale RoboTaxi testing in Phoenix; in May of the same year, Waymo announced that it would jointly launch RoboTaxi services with Lyft.

From 2017 to 2018, car manufacturers such as BMW, Volkswagen, General Motors, and Ford, together with Intel, Nvidia, Google, Lyft and other companies, entered the RoboTaxi market, which was also the hottest period for autonomous driving.

In April 2019, Tesla founder Elon Musk publicly stated that he would establish a Tesla RoboTaxi network in 2020. As part of the Tesla network's "RoboTaxi" service, vehicle owners can earn up to $30,000 per year. Musk has set his sights on the autonomous mobility as a service (MaaS) market. In a conference call after Tesla announced the rate hike, Musk pointed out that RoboTaxi could eventually push the company to a market value of $500 billion.

It is worth mentioning that: just like the promise of "achieving full autonomous driving in 2020", most companies set 2025 as the target year for the full realization of RoboTaxi.

In Asia, in addition to Singapore, some companies in Japan are also conducting RoboTaxi tests, and a joint venture between DeNA and ZMP plans to provide self-driving taxi services for the 2020 Olympic Games.

New Chinese Players
How can the bustling RoboTaxi market be without Chinese players?

In June 2019, Baidu obtained a license to operate RoboTaxi services in Changsha, which means that Baidu is very likely to become one of the first companies to operate in China.

On August 5, 2019, Didi Chuxing announced that its autonomous driving department was upgraded to an independent company, focusing on autonomous driving research and development, product application and related business expansion. It is understood that RoboTaxi is also one of the main businesses developed by Didi Autonomous Driving Company. As a domestic travel service provider, Didi seems to have an inherent advantage in this field.

On August 7, 2019, autonomous driving startup WeRide announced the establishment of a joint venture, WeRide, with South China's largest taxi company, Guangzhou Baiyun Taxi Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Guangzhou Public Transport Group, and Science City (Guangzhou) Investment Group Co., Ltd., focusing on RoboTaxi and jointly developing new autonomous driving travel.

In the near future, there may be a "big melee" in the RoboTaxi field. Will the travel companies with inherent market advantages be able to seize the initiative, or will the technology companies with solutions be able to catch up? Everything is unknown, but it is also exciting. I believe that the perfect combination of technology and service can bring users the ultimate travel experience.