Dialogue With Wang Jin, CEO Of Cixing: Vehicle Road Coordination Is The Future Of Unmanned Driving In China

"China's intelligent transportation should take vehicle road coordination rather than single vehicle intelligent road." Recently, in an interview with the media including the 21st century economic report, Wang Jin, chairman and CEO of China smart bank, said, "this is a very critical choice for the future development of intelligent transportation in China."

Since this year, the application of unmanned driving technology in China has continued to advance. At present, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Shenzhen and other cities are carrying out the research and development test of unmanned taxis and buses on urban roads.

Among them, some science and technology enterprises become pioneers. Baidu chairman Li Yanhong previously disclosed that Baidu unmanned car has been in Changsha, Chongqing, Beijing, Cangzhou and other places to experience riding. Autox and didi have launched driverless taxi service in Jiading, Shanghai, where they can call automatic driving vehicles for test ride free of charge. Xiaoma Zhixing and Wenyuan Zhixing also launched similar driverless taxi service in Guangzhou.

However, Wang Jin pointed out that at present, China is still mainly in the stage of bicycle intelligence, and there is still a gap compared with the United States. It is expected to achieve lane changing and overtaking if the vehicle road coordination road is adopted, "China is also the country with the most conditions to take the vehicle road coordinated road".

From single vehicle intelligence to vehicle road coordination

With the popularity of artificial intelligence in recent years, the development of unmanned driving is also in full swing.

In September this year, at the 2020 Baidu World Conference, Li Yanhong said that unmanned driving will be commercialized in five years. Recently, the news of Baidu robotaxi's open test in Beijing has also triggered a heated discussion on automatic driving technology on the Internet. At present, Baidu robotaxi is regarded as a L4 level automatic driving with limited functions and limited areas, which is also the first echelon in the field of automatic driving in the world.

In the U.S., waymo, the parent company of Google, has made the fastest progress. Waymo has traveled 6.1 million miles (9.82 million kilometers) since it first tested its autonomous driving technology in Phoenix, with 65000 miles (105000 kilometers) of which have been completed without driving, according to its latest autopilot test report.

However, by contrast, the gap between China and the United States is quite obvious. According to the content of Apollo intelligent transportation white paper, by the end of 2019, Baidu has applied for more than 1800 patents in the world, ranking first in China. The total test mileage is more than 3 million kilometers - only a third of waymo's.

"There is still a gap between the level of China's bicycle intelligent technology and data collection, and it will take some time to reach the level of the United States. At the same time, China's traffic situation is more complex than that of the United States, and it may take another two years for China to truly realize the American style operation." Wang Jin said bluntly.

In fact, the coordinated development of vehicle and road has been paid attention to. On September 15, the Ministry of industry and information technology said that it would organize the implementation of the "action plan for the development of Internet of vehicles (Intelligent Internet connected vehicles) industry" and strengthen the construction of national level leading area of Internet of vehicles. At the same time, the Ministry of science and technology will also study the "14th five year plan" national key R & D plan in combination with the national medium and long-term science and technology development plan, comprehensively consider the research and development of key technologies, systems and platforms of Internet of vehicles, and strengthen the construction of comprehensive opening and verification technology platform.

Earlier, some pilot projects of vehicle road collaborative new infrastructure were also implemented, involving the launch of the standard system of Internet of vehicles, such as intelligent signal lights, 5g communication base stations, high-precision map of regional intelligent network connected vehicles, unified communication protocol of Internet of vehicles, road traffic management platform, vehicle road collaborative network security protection, etc.

In Wang Jin's opinion, the intelligent travel road based on vehicle road coordination in China has become the general trend, and even has China's unique advantages. This is the reason why China smart line shifted its focus from single vehicle intelligence to vehicle road coordination as early as last year.

"Vehicle road collaboration needs the support of 5g communication. China is one of the first countries to deploy 5g network, and is now moving faster in this field." Wang Jin pointed out that "vehicle road coordination also needs to carry out intelligent transformation of roads, including connecting wires, networks and many sensors on the road, which also needs strong government support and promotion."

Calling for industrial integration

However, the car threshold will still face the direction of collaborative development in the future.

Wang Jin pointed out that there are several key points in the coordinated development of vehicle and road, namely smart cars, intelligent roads and powerful clouds. Only by unifying these elements can we promote the development of the industry. Behind these elements, there are high-tech industry, automobile industry, communication industry and travel industry.

"All four industries need to be involved in vehicle road collaboration, and they are indispensable." Wang Jin pointed out. Recently, Zhongqi Chuangzhi Technology Co., Ltd., which was jointly funded by ordnance equipment group, FAW, Dongfeng company, Chang'an Automobile and Jiangning Economic Development Technology Co., Ltd., has reached strategic cooperation with CIIC to accelerate the R & D and application of intelligent vehicle technology, which is an example of industrial integration.

At the same time, the important participant outside the industry is the government. "Vehicle road collaboration is no longer like bicycle intelligence, but a purely technical problem of an enterprise. To do a good job in vehicle road coordination, industrial integration and government support are crucial."

In addition to integrated development, due to the road reconstruction, vehicle road coordination faces the real reconstruction cost problem. According to the data of the Ministry of communications and the National Bureau of statistics, by the end of 2018, the total mileage of highways in China was 4.8465 million km, the mileage of expressways was 142600 km, and the actual length of urban roads was 432200 km. It is speculated that the cost of single kilometer vehicle road collaborative transformation is about 1 million yuan, which means that the rough calculation of the transformation cost of the whole vehicle road coordination will be trillions.

However, with the development of the industry, Wang Jin believes that the cost will drop substantially. "From today's selection, the cost of (single kilometer vehicle road collaborative transformation) should be less than 800000 yuan, and will be lower after the mass production of core parts in the future."

On the other hand, compared with single vehicle intelligence, vehicle road collaborative route will actually "save money" for the whole intelligent travel system. The logic is that if the road is smart enough, bicycles don't have to be very smart. Considering that the domestic car ownership is as high as 260 million, the cost of intelligent transformation of single vehicle saved by vehicle road coordination is more imaginative.

According to Wang Jin, CIIC's business model is to become an unmanned taxi platform. Although the enterprise is still in the investment stage, it has a clear timetable.

"It will take two to three years for the technology with vehicle road coordination as the core to accumulate and mature. It will take one year for unmanned vehicle operation to reach 1000 square kilometers. After that, enterprises will have the opportunity to break even." Wang Zhixing revealed that he could achieve a break even in about three years