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The Paper reporter Wu Yuxin, Wu Yuli, Shao Bingyan, intern Wei Qixuan, Tao Lemeng, Guo Yichen

"Robot Run", nicknamed "苕苕苕" by Wuhan netizens, became an Internet sensation because of its "never refuses passengers, abides by the rules, offers low prices, and grabs business" and other labels. This also brought the driverless taxi (Robotaxi) industry, which had already sparked heated discussions in Wuhan nearly two months ago, back into the spotlight.

The latest news is that some netizens posted videos and pictures on social media platforms of a car that broke down and stopped on the street, causing traffic jams. This even made "Traffic police cannot control the car, and attention should be paid to it" a hot topic.

In this regard, the customer service staff of Luobo Kuaipao told The Paper that if you encounter such a situation, you can call the customer service number and provide the vehicle information. The customer service staff will transfer the information to the relevant staff for timely processing.

In addition to causing traffic congestion, the outside world is more concerned about the impact of driverless taxis on traditional taxis and even the online car-hailing market.

On July 12, in response to questions from The Paper, a staff member of the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Bureau said, "It doesn't exist. There are only a few hundred test vehicles. There is random discussion online. You spread it, he spreads it, and the (false) number comes out."

According to data disclosed by all parties, the current number of Luobo Kuaipao vehicles in Wuhan is 300-400, which is still insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of taxis and online-hailing vehicles currently in Wuhan.

However, the attention of all parties to driverless taxis has clearly increased.

Hundreds of driverless cars

It is difficult to shake the traditional market structure

Mr. Zhang, who works in an online car-hailing service in Wuhan, told The Paper that after the appearance of driverless online car-hailing vehicles in Wuhan's central urban area, his recent turnover and passenger flow have dropped significantly. "My previous 12-hour turnover was around 500 yuan. After the introduction of driverless vehicles, it dropped by nearly half to only 200 to 300 yuan." Mr. Zhang believes that many people will choose driverless online car-hailing vehicles for price considerations and curiosity.

Some Wuhan drivers also said frankly that they were not worried. "The robocars are mainly in Optics Valley (Wuhan East Lake New Technology Development Zone), with a total number of only more than 400. For this kind of new things, the test sites are all in Optics Valley, mainly because there are many college students there, so it is easy to accept and get feedback. Otherwise, in the city, if you ask your mother-in-law about this car, do you really believe what she says?"

The driver also said, "They say it's cheap because they are competing for passengers, otherwise who would be the guinea pigs? Some say it's cleaner than online ride-hailing cars and taxis, but that's because it's just started and it still needs to clean the front. If it really operates like online ride-hailing cars, with no one in the car, it's impossible to keep it clean, and the cleaning fee would be more expensive than the driver."

Another taxi driver with more than ten years of driving experience also said that it has not had much impact on his business. "The number of vehicles deployed in Wuhan is not large. It is the tourist season recently, and many tourists also want to experience driverless vehicles, so it is quite popular."

So far, Baidu has not announced the specific number of LuoBoKuaiPao vehicles deployed. According to media reports, the total number of vehicles in Wuhan in the first quarter of this year was 500, including vehicles with and without safety officers. In June, Xinhua News Agency reported that the number of LuoBoKuaiPao driverless vehicles exceeded 300.

On May 9 this year, the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Bureau announced that Wuhan operated an average of 29,400 online taxis per day, with an average of 13.2 orders per car per day, which means that the total number of orders per day is 388,080. What about taxis? In 2022, Wuhan registered 18,367 cruising taxis, and in 2023, the passenger volume of cruising taxis reached 214,345,600. According to rough estimates, Wuhan's cruising taxis transport an average of 587,000 people per day, and the total number of "online taxi + taxi" orders per day is about 580,000.

The information disclosed by Baidu is that it provided approximately 826,000 ride-hailing services in the first quarter of this year. "This is Baidu's data for one quarter. Although the number of orders has not been disclosed, it can be basically judged that hundreds of Carrot Run cars will find it difficult to shake the overall market of cruising taxis and online car-hailing services," an industry observer told the reporter from The Paper.

Advantages and disadvantages of driverless taxis:

It's not that cheap

On social media platforms, netizens in Wuhan called "radish run fast" "tiao radish". In Hubei dialect, tiao means "stupid" when used as an adjective. In Wuhan, where the driving style is relatively "tough", some citizens complained that radish run fast is slow, while others joked that radish run fast is too obedient to traffic rules, causing inconvenience to experienced drivers.

A passenger who had experienced LuoBoKuaiPao in Wuhan told The Paper that, for now, he would not choose a driverless taxi for his daily commute. "There are only a few fixed pick-up points, and the waiting time is long. You have to wait for the last order to finish, which is not as fast as online ride-hailing. The vehicle drives very steadily, but very slowly, and it keeps giving way to other pedestrians and cars on the road. It is unlikely that people will choose to take this car to work on weekdays. It takes too long and is quite inconvenient."

Experienced drivers also have different feelings about LuoBoKuaiPao. "If the passenger is on the other side of the road, I will turn around and pick you up, but it won't work. You can't call and communicate with the AI. In addition, it will drive directly to the destination without stopping anywhere along the way, which will also cause trouble for passengers."

"There are many situations while driving, such as passengers feeling unwell or vomiting after drinking. These are all emergencies and AI cannot cope with them. Overall, I think it is not very mature," said the Wuhan driver.

Some passengers also praised the current driverless technology, saying that driverless cars "will not refuse passengers, will not disturb the road, and you don't have to look at the driver's face when riding."

However, according to The Paper, there are also "refusals" on the ride. Pregnant women, babies in arms, people over 70 years old, and people with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases or other physical discomforts are prohibited from riding. People over 60 years old need to be accompanied by their children, and people under 18 also need to be accompanied by a guardian to ride. There are also certain regulations on the number and size of luggage that passengers carry.

In terms of ride prices, many passengers give the evaluation that it is cheap. Although the prices of some orders may not be cheaper than other online ride-hailing platforms, they are basically more affordable than taxis. Taking Wuhan Tianhe Airport to Jinyinhu Wanda Plaza as an example, the price of Luobo Kuaipao after discount is 40.50 yuan, and the price of Didi Express after discount is 36.79 yuan. The taxi price is more than 60 yuan. The reporter also changed the destination location many times. The price of Luobo Kuaipao is better than that of taxis, but compared with other online ride-hailing platforms, the price advantage is not obvious.

In the view of the above observer, "Now Wuhan residents can get a ride for '6 yuan for 5 kilometers', which is just a familiar formula. When the online car-hailing subsidy war was going on, who didn't pay 10 yuan for 10 kilometers?"

JPMorgan Chase's research report pointed out that favorable trends in the key variables of driverless taxi profitability (pricing, vehicle costs, and vehicle safety officer ratios) are expected to bring about break-even in a single city in the second half of 2024. Although a case study of Baidu's Shanghai driverless taxi business showed disappointingly severe financial losses, the agency believes that Baidu's single-city profit margin is expected to rise significantly in the second half of 2024.

JPMorgan Chase believes that there are two major obstacles to the driverless taxi business generating significant profits: break-even at the unit economic efficiency level and regulatory approval for city-wide operations. As long as these two obstacles are overcome, profits will only be affected by unit economic efficiency and the number of vehicles. Given China's highly developed electric vehicle supply chain, the latter can easily reach a large scale. Although it is difficult to predict when local approval for city-wide operations will occur, it is believed that it may appear as early as 2025.

Autonomous driving expansion

It can be imagined that the door to autonomous driving is opening wider and wider.

According to The Paper, Wuhan has taken the lead in releasing a pilot policy for fully driverless cars in the past two years, and has realized multiple autonomous driving application scenarios such as cross-district travel, cross-river travel, and airport highway travel. By the end of 2023, the total mileage of open test roads in Wuhan has exceeded 3,378.73 kilometers (one-way mileage), covering 12 administrative districts, a radiation area of ​​about 3,000 square kilometers, and reaching a population of over 7.7 million. The number of open mileage and open areas remains the highest in the country, and it is also the world's largest autonomous driving travel service area.

It's not just Wuhan.

According to the Luobu Kuaipao APP, the current operating areas include 12 cities including Shanghai, Fuzhou, Jiaxing, Yangquan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Beijing, Hefei, Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuhan and Shenzhen. Except for Wuhan, which operates 24 hours a day throughout the city, the other 11 cities can only operate during certain periods in designated areas. For example, Shanghai only operates in Jiading District from 7 to 23 o'clock every day, and Chengdu's operating area is the High-tech Zone, from 8 to 18 o'clock every day.

On the policy side, on July 12, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, mentioned at the 14th China Automotive Forum that it is necessary to accelerate the commercial application of high-level autonomous driving and intelligent connected vehicles.

According to Beijing Daily, the Beijing Economic and Information Technology Bureau recently solicited opinions on the "Beijing Autonomous Driving Vehicle Regulations (Draft for Comments)", which intends to support the use of autonomous driving vehicles in urban public electric bus passenger transport, online car-hailing, car rental and other urban travel services.

In Shanghai, at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference on July 4, four companies obtained the first batch of Shanghai's driverless intelligent connected vehicle demonstration application licenses.

In the near future, more driverless taxis will gradually take to the streets.

Editor of this issue: Zou Shan