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Recently, the popularity of driverless taxis (Robotaxi) has continued to grow both at home and abroad.

Robotaxi has gone from pilot operations to large-scale commercial operations in some cities. Some people think that this is radical and risky, and that Robotaxi is not suitable for large-scale operation when the technology is not yet truly mature. But some people are optimistic that it is only a matter of time before Robotaxi becomes one of people's mainstream travel options.

So, what kind of era is the era of Robotaxi commercialization 1.0? How should we correctly view the current development status of Robotaxi? What will be the future development trend of Robotaxi?

Recently, in a conversation between Titanium Media App and Roland Berger’s global partner Wu Zhao, he pointed out,Except for China and the United States, most other countries and regions in the world are still in the small-scale testing stage with safety personnel.

Robotaxi enters commercialization stage 1.0

Since 2019, Robotaxi has been gradually put into trial operation in Beijing Yizhuang, Shanghai Anting, Guangzhou Nansha and other places. However, Robotaxi was still in its early stages of development, with the characteristics of "limited operating areas and fixed drivable routes". Due to the immaturity of the technology, the vehicles were equipped with a main driver and a safety officer, and the passengers were more of a group of customers trying out the technology.

However, with the rapid development of autonomous driving technology in recent years, there has been a transition from the early main driver safety officer to no safety officer in the car. The operating area of ​​self-driving taxis has also been greatly expanded and enriched with policy support, and can achieve any point-to-point operation.

In Wu Zhao's view, from the perspective of consumer experience, the great improvement in Robotaxi's takeover rate and accident rate has directly improved the riding experience.

At the end of 2023, Roland Berger proposed that my country's Robotaxi industry will start in 2024.It has entered the commercialization 1.0 stage of "vigorous development and multi-point development" from "commercialization trials". This stage can be simply summarized as the "official commercial operation of Robotaxi without a driver safety officer".

The formal commercial operation of Robotaxi is inseparable from the support of regulatory policies, especially considering the travel industry attributes and high-level intelligent driving technology characteristics of Robotaxi.

"In the past few years of the development of the intelligent driving field, we can observe that government regulation and technological development continue to advance in a "spiral" pattern, exchanging technological reliability for a relaxed regulatory policy environment. At the same time, the relaxation of regulatory policies will feed back into further iteration and optimization of technology." Wu Zhao told Titanium Media App.

In Wu Zhao's view, China's policies related to autonomous driving are generally stable, while some cities or regions are taking a policy-first approach and are more actively supporting exploration, and policies at the national and local levels complement each other.

Since last year, the national and local governments have frequently issued industry support policies and regulations. For example, in November 2023, four ministries jointly issued the "Notice on the Pilot Work of Access and Road Passenger Traffic of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as the Access Notice) and in December, the Ministry of Transport issued the "Autonomous Driving Vehicle Transportation Safety Service Guidelines (Trial)", which filled the policy gap in the access, mass production and commercial operation standards of high-level autonomous driving models for a long time since the emergence of autonomous driving technology.

Among them, the "Access Notice" formally puts forward specific requirements on the access standards, usage entities, road access, suspension and exit, data security and network security of L3/L4 level autonomous driving models.

The rules for dividing responsibility for accidents, which are of most concern to the industry, have also been initially clarified. The Access Notice requires automobile manufacturers and users to form a consortium for declaration, among which the users may include Robotaxi technology companies, autonomous driving technology companies, travel platforms, etc., but users engaged in transportation operation pilots need to have transportation operation qualifications, and require all parties to sign an agreement to clarify the division of rights and responsibilities, rather than simply attributing the responsibility for the accident to one or more parties, determine the main responsible party based on the actual situation and support the main responsible party to seek compensation from other parties.

In addition, as more local governments have introduced a series of policies for driverless driving and increased investment in autonomous driving infrastructure such as intelligent traffic management systems and high-precision maps, Robotax has begun commercial operations of the charging model in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing and other places.

Before Wuhan took the lead in the trial, cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou have actually been supporting the application of autonomous driving technology and the trial operation of Robotaxi in the past few years. In Wu Zhao's view,The national and local governments actively provide policy support for the large-scale mass production and commercial operation of autonomous driving, which is an important guarantee for accelerating the commercialization of Robotaxi.

Robotaxi vs. Traditional Ride-hailing

The rapid development of Robotaxi may have the biggest impact on traditional online ride-hailing services. So, how profitable is Robotaxi? For operators, is it really cheaper than traditional online ride-hailing services?

In Wu Zhao's view, unit cost and profitability have always been one of the key challenges of Robotaxi, which is also the core consideration that determines the timeline of its large-scale commercialization.

He pointed out that Robotaxi's current pricing strategy cannot reflect the actual cost, and also has the subsidies and promotional preferential attributes of the early development stage. It does not have the reference and sustainable reference for direct comparison with mature business formats.As a mode of transportation, the core issue in evaluating whether Robotaxi vehicles can become a regular mode of transportation in the future lies in the competitiveness of their unit cost per vehicle to meet the public's travel needs.

As we all know, in an ideal mode, Robotaxi can operate 24 hours a day, which can bring high utilization of vehicles, so the scale effect is higher and the price is better when other conditions are the same. However, we cannot ignore thatThe current Robotaxi vehicle manufacturing cost (including high-end intelligent driving modules) and safety operation cost (including safety officer costs, safety platform operation costs, etc.) are much higher than traditional online car-hailing services.

Therefore, the continuous optimization of the operating costs of a single Robotaxi vehicle will be the core focus of companies in the Robotaxi ecosystem in the next few years.

The discussion on whether Robotaxi can replace traditional online ride-hailing has been going on for a long time. In Wu Zhao's view, the commercialization of Robotaxi requires the joint realization of five major factors: policy, technology, cost, operation service and consumer acceptance. For example, on the policy side, it is necessary to achieve complete liberalization of the operation area, and improve the mechanisms such as industry access, safety responsibility, and technical operation standards; on the technical side, it is necessary to have complete full-scenario L4 autonomous driving capabilities; on the cost side, it is necessary to have unit cost competitiveness.

Therefore, Wu Zhao believes that after years of development and policy adjustments, online ride-hailing has become a very mature, convenient, high-quality and safe transportation model.Robotaxi is still in the early stages of accelerating commercialization and does not pose a direct challenge to the national ride-hailing industry in the short and medium term.

RobotaxiFuture development trends

Baidu's Turnip Run is expected to break even in Wuhan by the end of 2024 and become profitable in 2025. However, some people believe that Turnip Run still relies heavily on manpower such as security guards and operators, and it is not easy to achieve profitability in the short term.

Wu Zhao’s view on this is:RobotaxiThe calculation of the break-even point needs further verification.However, he believes that the rapid development of intelligent driving technology will reduce the cost of vehicle manufacturing, and the guarantee of operating mechanisms will reduce the cost of safe operations. The combined effect of these cost factors will inevitably accelerate the operators' profitability and the industry's commercialization process.

The "Guidelines for Autonomous Driving Vehicle Transportation Safety Services (Trial)" issued by the Ministry of Transport at the end of last year requires that autonomous taxis must be equipped with safety officers in order to ensure the safety bottom line of passenger operations. L4 autonomous driving models should be equipped with one safety officer in daily operations, while L5 or fully autonomous driving models can be equipped with a remote safety officer, with a ratio of no less than 1:3.

"Of course, for trial operation projects in specific local demonstration areas, local regulations and requirements can be relatively relaxed. On the premise that safety risks are controllable, operators are encouraged to actively try," said Wu Zhao.

In his opinion, the ratio of remote safety officers to vehicles continues to decrease, which can reduce the cost of safety operations. However, we cannot ignore that Robotaxi, as an output of emerging technology development, is still immature in terms of high-level intelligent driving, and the safety of passenger operations is also the basic responsibility of travel service providers.

Wu Zhao predicted,The next three years will be a critical breakthrough stage for the commercialization of Robotaxi, and technological breakthroughs and technological safety will remain the core concerns., policy supervision and the construction of supporting operation systems are equally important, which will promote the clarification of profit models and operating cost reduction paths and achieve a breakthrough in the economic benefits of bicycles. "

In addition, he also believes that once the theoretical economic benefit balance point and commercial breakthrough are reached, the impact of Robotaxi on the existing travel ecosystem and participants (including online car-hailing, taxis, etc.) will be an ongoing topic, which will go beyond people's previous attention on the technical and commercial levels.

Robotaxi is a complex ecosystem that integrates forward-looking technology and high-quality services, covers 2B and 2C models, and also has the attributes of "travel", a livelihood security industry. Therefore, Wu Zhao called for "the development and popularization of this industry to require the joint efforts of ecosystem participants."

(This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author: Zhang Min)