MEXICO CITY (apro).- China is the country with the largest number of driverless cars. The city of Wuhan has a fleet of 500 computer-driven taxis, often without security drivers to back them up.
Assisted driving or driverless vehicles use small exterior-mounted cameras or laser systems to collect information from space, which is then processed by the car’s computers to then make decisions about the direction and speed of the vehicle.
Wuhan is a city of 11 million inhabitants and 4.5 million cars in central China, where Baidu – a Chinese technology company – already has 500 of the so-called “robot taxis”, to which it plans to add a thousand more, according to announced last month.
Wuhan is not the only Chinese city where tests of autonomous vehicles are being carried out on public roads. According to The New York Times, at least 19 Chinese automakers have been allowed to conduct such tests in 16 or more cities.
Baidu also has a joint venture with Zhejiang Geely, called Jiyue, to make driverless vehicles. Additionally, together with Huawei, Baidu supplies parts or all of the automated systems to other Chinese automakers.
According to “The New York Times”, the Chinese government itself helps these companies significantly and, in cities, they have even been assigned test areas on the roads. That same medium has pointed out that censors have limited online discussions about some security incidents and crashes to curb public fears about the development of this technology.
“I think there’s no need to worry too much about safety; it must have passed safety clearance,” said Zhang Ming, a grocery store owner in Wuhan, where many Baidu robotaxis stop.
The Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers has predicted that by 2030, 20% of cars sold in that country will be fully autonomous and that another 70% will have advanced assisted driving technology.
In contrast, the numbers of autonomous vehicles from non-Chinese companies are much lower. Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving division, is testing more than 200 cars in Phoenix and San Francisco, and nearly 50 in Los Angeles and Austin.
For their part, Ford and Volkswagen closed their robotic taxi joint venture, Argo AI, two years ago, but both companies are still developing advanced assisted driving systems, according to “The New York Times.”
In China, battery electric cars account for about 25% of the market, compared to 7% in the United States.
According to Baidu, they have a three- to five-year lead over Tesla in cities like Wuhan, said Wang Yunpeng, president of that company’s intelligent driving business group.
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2024-06-20 05:34:32
