Sporty brakes
Taxis without a driver conquer China
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In China's curves more and more autonomously driving taxis through the big cities. A ride with them takes some getting used to – but quite cheap.
When the bus bus suddenly starts on the right lane, the autopilot gets into the spin – the Robotaxi brakes abruptly on the free road. A truck behind it therefore passes on the left – the autopilot must quickly counteract. If you want to order an autonomously driving taxi in the Yizhuang district in China's capital Beijing from A to B in China's capital, shaped by factories and high office towers.
In terms of price, it is always worth it: the approximately 8.4 kilometer journey is available for a little more than eleven Yuan, i.e. the equivalent of around 1.40 euros. Robotaxi providers undercut the prices in the already cheap driving service business and want to be ahead.
However, the steering wheel in the electric car, which is rotating by ghost hand, takes a little getting used to. Unlike the other road users, the car stoically adheres to the specified 50 kilometers per hour. In the least danger, the computer in the truest sense of the word brakes in an inhumane way.
More than 30 cities in China have distributed test licenses for autonomous driving. The robotaxis are more in the megacities. In Beijing, however, there is still a person in the driver's seat who can use the steering wheel in an emergency. Wuhan in Central China, which gained sad awareness through the Corona pandemic, is already there: there the approximately 100 taxis from Apollo Go are already driving without help. The tech giant Baidu, China's counterpart to Google, is behind the provider. You call the taxi by mobile phone app. To open the back door, the passenger scans a code. Inside you enter a PIN previously preserved by SMS on a screen – and then it starts.
“Can change the job”
In Beijing with its six motorway rings and often clogged streets, robotaxis have so far only been allowed to drive away from the center in certain areas. But taxi drivers are already annoyed: if one of the delivery drivers does not go on the normal track with the scooter, the robotaxi cannot handle it, says Mr. Li, who works for one of the many Chinese driving services similar to Uber. “The road conditions are simply very complex.” The robotaxis are therefore often slower or brakes from caution.
Not far from the test area, taxi driver Hao is currently inviting his electric car. He does not see great competition through the autonomous competition. “Beijing is full of people who are in a hurry,” he says. The robotaxis are not as flexible as real drivers who quickly adapt the route for their passengers who wanted to quickly go to the train station or work, he says, while pulling the charging cable out of the typical orange-blue taxi. He is therefore not worried about the future. “If this no longer brings money in, I can switch to another job,” he says.
In Germany, Chinese conditions in the taxi industry are still a future music. The legal framework in the Federal Republic are stricter and required a high level of safety and liability of the systems, says Philipp Kupferschmidt from the management consultancy Accenture. “On the other hand, there is also greater skepticism in Germany and reluctance on the part of the consumer to autonomous driving.”
According to Pedro Pacheco, auto -analyst of the market research company Gartner, Germany has far fewer companies that work in this area. So far, curves in Munich or Hamburg Elektro -Bullis from Volkswagen in partnership with the software company Mobileye through the streets – but in test operation. In Hamburg, customers should still be able to do test drives this year.
“Evolutionary approach”
According to Peter Fintl, industry expert and Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Capgemini Engineering, Germany was already instrumental in the development of autonomous driving in the 1980s. But the development paths split off. In China and the United States, the manufacturers would rather have aimed to achieve fully automated operation. In Germany, the manufacturers have decided on the “evolutionary approach”, says Fintl – i.e. to develop existing driving assistance systems.
So what can consumers in Germany expect from technology? Kupferschmidt expects a step -by -step introduction and expansion of the application area of autonomous vehicles and robotaxis. The cars would still be monitored and accompanied by a person or a remote control. However, it is unclear whether the technology will ever operate to level 5 – the royal discipline in which the car takes over. “With a view to the currently task -based KIs, I doubt that,” says Kupferschmidt.
The legislature has already determined the legal foundations. In designated and approved areas such as on a exhibition center, for example, an autonomously driving shuttle bus can run. Autonomous driving is already an issue for the large manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen. However, level 5 is more in the distance. However, many should know functions from level 2, like the automatic parking.
Fintl notes: “Partial automation, such as the motorway pilot, made the leap into the series.” The introduction of such systems in the middle class is imminent. When asked about robotaxis on German roads, competition – according to him – is a length ahead: Even if the technology has to be mature even further and the cost advantages still have to prove compared to the human driver, the large experimental fleets in the respective countries are still a one Significant advantage, he says.
