Beijing launches the world's first autonomous driving shuttle line, and 4 companies are approved to operate

On February 23, the "Airport Line" autonomous driving manned demonstration from Beijing Daxing International Airport to Beijing Yizhuang was officially launched, marking the official opening of the world's first capital city airport autonomous driving shuttle manned demonstration scene.

On February 28, the official Weibo account of Beijing Yizhuang announced that Beijing's high-level autonomous driving demonstration zone issued highway manned demonstration application notices to Baidu, Pony.ai, AutoX and WeRide. Four autonomous driving-related companies obtained corresponding licenses, namely Baidu, Pony.ai, AutoX and WeRide.

The taxis that performed autonomous driving this time were called Robotaxi . The route they performed was from Huangyi Road to Beijing-Taipei Expressway to Daxing Airport North Line to Airport Expressway to Daxing International Airport, a total of about 40 kilometers. Since it was a newly opened demonstration scene, there was still a safety officer in the driver's seat, but the robot taxi could deliver customers safely without human intervention throughout the journey, just like an experienced driver.

Currently, passengers can make reservations for robot taxis from four companies that are allowed to operate through apps such as Luobo Kuaipao, Baidu Maps, PonyPilot+, Auto X Unmanned Vehicles, and WeRide Go. After a successful reservation, passengers only need to wait at the agreed time and place. Pony.ai's unmanned shuttle service hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and reservations must be made on the app one day in advance.

According to CCTV News, 17 national-level test demonstration zones, 7 national-level vehicle networking pilot zones, and 16 "dual-intelligence" pilot cities have been built across the country, with a total of more than 22,000 kilometers of test roads open and a cumulative test mileage of more than 70 million kilometers.

In 2023, the Beijing Municipal Government released the "2022 Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone Construction and Development Report", which disclosed that as of March 2023, there were 19 testing companies in the demonstration zone, the number of vehicles connected to the network reached 578, and the cumulative autonomous driving mileage reached 14.49 million kilometers.

In November, the autonomous driving industry reached a critical turning point, with four ministries and commissions issuing a notice on the pilot work of intelligent connected vehicle access and road traffic. The document stated that for intelligent connected vehicle products that have obtained access, a road traffic pilot will be carried out in a limited area.

The intelligent connected vehicle products mentioned here are also specifically described in the document. They are cars with Level 3 driving automation (conditional autonomous driving) and Level 4 driving automation (highly autonomous driving) functions defined in the national standard "Automobile Driving Automation Classification" (GB/T 40429-2021), which are the L3 and L4 autonomous driving we are familiar with.

As policies increase their encouragement, the field of autonomous driving is experiencing a warm spring. Some institutions predict that global smart driving shipments will approach 55 million units in 2025, and the penetration rate will climb from 51% in 2023 to 63%.

A spring breeze has warmed up the autonomous driving market. According to statistics from the Securities Times, among the 60 autonomous driving concept stocks that have released their 2023 performance forecasts, 22 companies have increased their net profits, of which 7 have increased by more than 100%. 9 companies are expected to turn losses into profits. BYD, the company with the highest market value, has a market value of 547.2 billion.