Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport (BMCT) published the official 2018 annual work report regarding Beijing autonomous driving road test. The report disclosed the total mileage run in the test.
Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport (BMCT) published the official 2018 annual work report regarding Beijing autonomous driving road test. The report disclosed the total mileage run in the test.
Beijing autonomous driving road test license is regarded as the most difficult road test license to obtain in China. By now, there are only 8 companies obtained test plates from BMCT, who are DiDi, Audi, Daimler AG, Tencent, BAIC BJEV, NIO, Pony.ai, and Baidu.
The total mileage is 153,565 km (95,421 miles), which is 3.8 times the length of the equator. Baidu’s test mileage ranked No.1 in Beijing road test statistics in 2018. With 45 test licenses granted, Baidu contributed over 91% of the autonomous driving test mileage with 45 test cars. And the No.2 is Pony.ai with 10,132.9 km (6,926 miles) which is approximately 6.6% of the total mileage.
The rest six companies contributed less than 2.4% of the total mileage and DiDi, the car-hailing giant unicorn contributed only 78.1 km (48.5 mile). DiDi’s movements in autonomous driving is not aggressive enough, comparing to existing road test players. Unlike automobile manufacturers or technology giants, DiDi’s main business relies on the use of vehicles instead of selling vehicles.
Many investors and researchers claimed that DiDi has no internet effect since the growth on the supply side is limited and will not grow proportionally with the growth of the demand. Car-hailing’s driver needs to rest after work, then the car-hailing service provided by this driver is paused, but the person who wants a ride still exists. To solve the conflict on both sides, DiDi has the motive to develop autonomous driving, which could sustain the supply availability. However, from the released data, DiDi is far from the top player in autonomous driving.
As being one of the top players, Baidu has been developing autonomous driving technology, which is named Apollo plan, for years. Pony.ai has launched the car-hailing service in a small region in Guangzhou and only opens to VIP guests.
Beijing autonomous driving road test field opened in March 2018. It plans to complete and improve the autonomous driving road test valuation system and gradually forms a road test procedure of virtual reality - enclosed field - open road, step by step. By 2020, the total length of test road in Beijing should reach 2,000 km (1,243 miles)。