The year 2020 has so far cast the whole world in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing disruptions to production and life in general and plunging us into collective reflections on our personal life to industry development. Where do our fears and strengths stem from? What can we do to help?
Tony Han, founder and CEO of WeRide said: “The virus has exerted unprecedented pressure on societies and economies. The vulnerability of mankind reminds us of the urgent need for more scientific and technological breakthroughs.”
However, such innovations are not coming up fast enough. The Covid-19 outbreak should have been an opportunity for L4 autonomous driving cars to play out their technological advantages. But development has not been fast enough and the fully self-driving passenger vehicles are yet to appear at this historic moment. While the outbreak engulfs the world, most of WeRide’s employees are working from home. Tony, currently in the Silicon Valley, has made his point clear to WeRide’s engineers in China and US through a video conference:
“2020 is going to be a year of stability for us. It’s not about churning out dazzling new technologies, but about honing and stabilizing our technologies to the point where we’re ready to speed up the next step of deploying truly driverless cars. “
Self-driving technology, a definite answer to the issues of human vulnerability in the post-pandemic era
On March 24, Sinovation Ventures held an online seminar on the theme of “How to accelerate autonomous driving technology in the post-pandemic era?” Just as Kai-Fu Lee, chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, said, “Crisis and opportunity come hand in hand. What we can do is to look deep into the situation, find clues, and dive into new explorations.” Self-driving technology is a definite answer to the issues of human vulnerability in the post-pandemic era.
At the seminar, Tony shared WeRide’s reflection on the development of the self-driving technology during the pandemic.
“If the outbreak were to strike us one or two years later, we would have our autonomous driving fleet ready to deliver masks, meals, and medical supplies to hospitals, even though transporting patients might still be challenging. The tragedy is that many hospital volunteers and drivers helping with patients transfer got infected during the outbreak. All these could have been avoided if our technology had been more mature. “
At the end of November 2019, WeRide launched robotaxi service in Guangzhou and it’s currently the country’s only robotaxi service fully available to the public. Meanwhile, we have released the first report on robotaxi operations in China, sharing with the industry and the public our data and experience of operating robotaxis in first-tier city. The sharing of the insights behind brings the public closer to self-driving technology, affording them a better understanding of the status quo of autonomous driving services. However, the huge potentials with the technology are yet to be fully tapped in this current public health crisis, because it is still “not developed fast enough”.
“If the truly driverless vehicles were good to go, they would be perfect for transporting suspected patients, since there is no driver in the vehicle but only the patient. After completing one mission, the vehicle will be cleaned and sanitized to avoid cross-infection with the next passenger.” Tony has stressed that the pandemic is making the value of self-driving technology even more prominent and stepped-up R&D efforts in the sector more urgent.
But faster development does not mean radical progression. In the world of self-driving technology, being fast means stability.
Since the robotaxi services open to the public, WeRide has accumulated a lot of experience. Through access to our ride-hailing services or educational robotaxi videos available on the Internet, the public can see for themselves that the autonomous driving systems installed in WeRide’s robotaxis have now been able to handle many complex scenarios.
But the real difficulty lies on whether the systems could handle every single scenario in a stable and consistent way. Tony has pinpointed the year 2020 as the “year of stability” because “ it is crucial to ensure that a trial repeated 10,000 times can trigger the same stable and consistent response from the system”. That’s the rub of it all.
Stability also comes from the “Robotaxi Triangle Model” WeRide adopts. The close partnership with car manufacturers and ride-hailing platforms means their skills and strengths are brought into play, allowing WeRide, an AI company in nature, to focus more on the development of stable technologies and speed up the compliance process for its operation.
Since February this year, self-driving technology has once again been chased by capital. Formerly viewed as risky venture by many, the technology is now moving into a new stage of development and increasingly favored by investors. It is believed that truly driverless services will be up and running within the next three to five years.
Tony has identified the focus of WeRide’s future endeavors as operation expansion and technological stability. A detailed three-year roadmap for the company has been laid out: WeRide robotaxi will continue to expand its operation in Guangzhou in 2020, pushing for regulation breakthroughs to remove safety drivers from robotaxis operating in restricted areas in 2021, and bringing further expansion of its fully driverless taxi services in Guangzhou to a wider area in 2023.
In the post-pandemic era, the sense of urgency and pressure faced by autonomous driving companies stems not from financial or profit concerns, but rather from a strong sense of social responsibility that self-driving technology shall take up in the face of huge public health crises in societies.
