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Self-driving cars could take to China’s roads by as early as 2020.
SHANGHAI—The world’s most populous country wouldn’t mind having fewer people behind the wheel on its roads. And domestic tech firms and car makers look increasingly ready to make that happen.
That evidence on display at this convention—hosted by theConsumer Electronics Association, the Arlington, Va., trade group that produces the far larger CES gathering every January in Las Vegas—suggests the road for autonomous vehicles in China may be about to open up, along with possible exports of autonomous-vehicle technology and components.
Less clear: Whether this will also result in self-driving Chinese vehicles showing up on American roads in anything like the numbers of people-driven Japanese or Korean cars.
The battery-electric S01—Leap Motor says it will run 360 kilometers, or about 224 miles, on a charge—will ship with software to keep in its lane and at a proper separation from other cars while on the road, then parallel-park itself automatically. In that short ride, it did just that, employing ultrasonic sensors and seven cameras to detect its surroundings.
The Leap Motor S01.
Many high-end, American-market models offer the same features, but Leap Motor plans to sell the S01 for 200,000 yuan, about $31,000, starting in the second quarter of next year. Andaggressive government subsidies for electric-vehicle purchases should lower that price substantially.
China is already a welcoming market for this entry-level automation, with an installation rate “way more than that of the rest of the world,” said Frank Wang, vice president of advanced safety and user experience for the Asia-Pacific region at the auto-components vendorAptiv, during a panel. Speaking in Mandarin, he cited that as evidence of the market’s openness to full automation.
Byton’s big bet
A more capable vision of autonomous driving made its debut here Tuesday night, when the startup firm Byton followed itsJanuary unveiling of an electric SUV at CES in Las Vegas by showing off an electric sedan that will also be able to drive itself.
ThisK-Byte vehicle looked strikingly more stylish than most self-driving prototypes, with LIDAR sensors to detect pedestrians tucked into a streamlined housing on the roof. Two others could be stowed behind hatches on the sides of the car.
A LIDAR sensor tucked into the side of Byton’s vehicle.
The dashboard is dominated by a screen that spans the width of the car, and which can double as an in-seat cinema for everybody—including the driver when the car is in autonomous mode.
Byton aims to have the K-Byte capable of “Level 4” autonomy—meaning it needs no driver intervention on any road—by 2020 and ship it in China that year for 300,000 yuan, or $45,000. It’s not committing to U.S. availability yet, although CEO Carsten Breitfeld said in a conversation afterwards that 2021 is a possibility.
That former BMW executive also had good things to say about China’s ability to make its pledges of support for self-driving cars happen. “It is decided and implemented; it moves very fast,” he said. “In Germany, we have a different system: We discuss for 10 years, and then we do 10 percent of what we originally intended.”
- Werbung -
Baidu’s moon shot
One of the weirder things about China’s tech economy is having Google (GOOG,GOOGL) asa non-factor, thanks to its unwillingness to submit to Beijing’s censorship. So instead of havingGoogle’s Waymo unit conducting self-driving-car tests as it is in the States, domestic equivalents are doing the same.
Baidu had two early results on display at its CES Asia exhibit: a 14-passenger electric minibus, and a compact no-passenger delivery vehicle built to run purchases to homes that looked like a baby Zamboni.
Baidu hasbased much of this development in California, as has Byton. But that doesn’t mean either firm can get past the highest wall for Chinese automakers: selling into the States.
But there’s also a longer-term risk: One American investor with a few decades of doing business in China suggested that heavy-handed government backing may ultimately prove more of a hindrance, much as it has in Beijing’s so-far-unsuccessful efforts to get into the passenger-airplane business.
Warned Robert Theleen, CEO of the Shanghai-based investment firmChinaVest: “Industrial policy only gets you so far,”
(Disclosure: I helped emcee the Last Gadget Standing competition here, and CTA covered most of my travel expenses.)
More from Rob:
EmailRobat rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at@robpegoraro.
