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This year’s Apollo RT6 was made by Baidu itself from start to finish.
The biggest selling point of Apollo RT6 is that it is a true “unmanned car”. After buying it, you don’t need to drive it, it will move by itself.
Moreover, the field of autonomous driving is Baidu’s strength. The car is equipped with the latest L4-level Apollo OS, which has been trained longer than the previous generation and has better driving skills.
Its security issue is also a point of concern to many people. For this aspect, there is a special term in the industry called “security redundancy”.
That is to say, the more technologies that can ensure the safe and autonomous driving of vehicles, the better.
On the Apollo RT6, Baidu has made seven layers of safety redundancy for the car from start to finish. It can be said that it has taken care of it in every possible way. It is said that it is the first in the industry.
After this press conference, many people were surprised.
After all, everyone knows that Baidu has been researching autonomous driving for many years, but I didn’t expect it to “fast-forward” to building cars, and it has not started from ordinary new energy vehicles, but it has directly launched unmanned vehicles.
You may think that this car has nothing to do with you, but maybe in a few years you have to take a taxi and go out, and there may be an RT6 parked in front of you.
In recent years, “autonomous driving”, a technology that originally belonged to science fiction films, has been getting closer and closer to our lives.
Why do we all yearn for autonomous driving so much? Is it just because it looks “more sci-fi” “more advanced”?
Obviously not, the advantages of autonomous driving are actually very simple, and the key point is one: efficiency.
I think many drivers have a deep understanding of all kinds of traffic jams.
In addition to sudden car accidents, various reasons such as random lane changes and low-speed driving will turn the green that was originally smooth on the navigation road into red.
Unless it’s a place where road planning is particularly stupid, in fact, today’s urban traffic management system is already very intelligent. If everyone obeys the traffic rules, there will be very little congestion.
The AI responsible for autonomous driving is absolutely “law-abiding” in this regard. It will never drive 50 yards if it should drive 60 yards, nor will it cause the owner to get a ticket for speeding, which will naturally improve the operation efficiency of the entire transportation system.
There are so many benefits of autonomous driving, and it is also a major trend in future travel. It is predicted that by 2030, the autonomous driving market may reach a scale of trillions of yuan.
In fact, in the autonomous driving industry, there are already many companies doing things like unmanned trucks, unmanned distribution, and unmanned buses.
Because the level of autonomous driving technology required by these industries is relatively low, there are many companies that can meet the standards.
In contrast, no company has been able to share a piece of such a big cake in the field of unmanned taxis. What is the reason for this?
For example, in foreign countries, there are Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, and companies such as Cruise and Uber are well-known in the field of autonomous driving. In China, there are also established companies such as Baidu that have been deeply involved in autonomous driving for many years.
But no matter whether domestic companies or foreign companies want to realize the commercialization of autonomous driving, the hardships they suffer are almost the same.
Chief among them is the issue of policy regulation.
There is no problem with the policy’s strict supervision of unmanned taxis. After all, human life is at stake, whether it is for the safety of passengers, pedestrians or drivers, this matter must not be sloppy.
It’s not a solution to stop these companies from going on the road for testing. After all, AI training still needs data support.
Leaders of relevant departments in various countries can naturally see this problem, so they are slowly releasing supervision.
Whether at home or abroad, there are already some small-scale pilots, so that these companies can test the waters first.
For example, Baidu launched the Carrot Run, and started commercial charging operations in Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, and Yangquan.
Up to now, the number of manned orders has exceeded 1 million, and even a user in Changsha has called more than 500 times.
Moreover, Baidu also became one of the first companies in China to obtain a license for Beijing’s unmanned manned demonstration application, and started the unmanned autonomous driving service on the same day.
In the future, if you get in the car in the area specified by the policy, the main driver does not need to sit in the car.
After that, if Baidu wants to continue to promote driverless taxis, it will depend on which lucky cities will become new pilots.
But don’t worry, I heard that Baidu plans to operate in 65 cities in 2025, and will cover 100 cities in 2030.
In addition to policy supervision, there is actually one thing that is also very troublesome for self-driving companies, that is, the cost of self-driving cars is very high.
First of all, in terms of software and hardware, long-term AI training and road test data acquisition are laborious and laborious.
A self-driving taxi fleet consisting of 50 cars alone will generate 1.6 PB of data after driving for 6 hours a day. In an ideal commercialization, the number of cars will add three or four zeros.
This massive amount of data processing is enough to cause headaches for these enterprises.
In addition, for self-driving cars, “eyes” such as lidars, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors are the most important organs, which determine the judgment and accuracy of self-driving cars.
These things can never be shoddy, so the price is quite expensive.
In addition, most unmanned vehicles need to rely on third-party drainage such as taxi platforms for commercial use, which is another huge cost, not to mention the cost of the vehicle itself and other additional costs.
After such a circle, it costs money everywhere, but Li Yanhong’s expectation for unmanned taxi travel is cheaper than the current taxi service. How to reduce this cost?
Obviously, Baidu has also considered these issues, and Baidu has many advantages in these aspects that no one else can match.
As far as policy is concerned, Baidu has rich experience in autonomous driving technology. In 2019, the first batch of the most advanced road test licenses issued in China were all obtained by Baidu.
This makes Baidu have road test data ahead of others, and the road environment in China is more complex and changeable, and the training effect is much better than that of foreign countries.
And Baidu’s ability to process data is also very strong, don’t forget that people’s old business is a search engine.
As for the vehicle cost, the data of Baidu Apollo RT6 just blinded my eyes: the cost price is 250,000 yuan, which is almost one-tenth of that of its peers. How can this be done?
After careful research, I found the doorway here.
Most cars used to be “driving experience” first and foremost, so there are many luxury features designed specifically for the driver.
But now that this is an unmanned car, since no one is required to drive it, the money for these luxury configurations can naturally be saved and put on the improvement of rear passenger comfort.
Elsewhere, Baidu is also controlling costs through various methods.
There are three main aspects. First, the cost of the whole vehicle is reduced. For the customization of operating scenarios, Baidu Cloud has applied its own intellectual property platform, which greatly reduces the cost of the vehicle itself.
Second, the cost of self-driving kits is reduced. Based on the advancement of technology, the mass-produced sensors and computing units used in the RT6 have greatly reduced the cost of autonomous driving kits.
Third, China’s manufacturing advantages, supply chain and production and manufacturing are mature and perfect, which further reduces costs.
Not to mention that Baidu has also launched the Radish Run platform. The first batch of Apollo RT6 is also put on this platform for passengers to call. There is no middleman to earn the difference, which can naturally reduce operating costs.
Looking at it this way, Baidu has basically thought about and solved the problems that other autonomous driving companies may encounter when commercializing in the future. Maybe China can really become the first country to realize “future travel”.
I remember watching a movie called “Crazy Dragon” when I was a child. There was a scene where the heroine was talking to the self-driving car, which impressed me very much.
I used to think that if I could meet a self-driving car in my lifetime, I must chat with it.
Now I’m still looking forward to self-driving cars, but I probably won’t talk to them anymore, I think as long as it can give me an extra half hour of sleep on the way to work, this kind of future is enough to make me laugh.
For people living in big cities, if unmanned taxis are really popularized, they will no longer have to worry about being late for work by a few minutes.
In the future when unmanned taxis are popularized, even if they are not office workers, they can really feel the convenience brought by it, because unmanned taxis have cheaper prices, safer and more standardized taxi services, and more comfortable surroundings.
Such a future, I hope it can come sooner.