Autonomous Driving：Shape the future transportation
（Team Project，我主要负责关于经济利益、未来产值等数据的收集，和对商业模式、相关产业的好处的分析）
The stock price of Tesla, a US-based electric vehicle maker, plunged to its lowest in seven years after a Tesla driver died in a one-car crash in California onMarch 23, with its autopilot system in control. The fatal accident also raised the public’s questions about the safety of the self-driving technology, which is the new focus of automotive industry in these years.
Self-driving technology has been an active area of research for some carmakers and high-tech companies for decades but particularly in the past five years, despite that autonomous car is still in the infancy stage, facing several challenges covering a wide scope, including software, safety, policy and data protection before it moves to mass production in the market.
Although autonomous-driving technology is not fully mature currently, consumers are enthusiastic about it. A survey from consulting company BCG (Boston ConsultingGroup) makes clear that about 55 percent of drivers in the United States are willing to buy a partially self-driving car while 44 percent said that they would consider buying a fully autonomous vehicle. Research company StrategyAnalytics also stated in one study that the market size of self-driving cars is estimated to reach $7 trillion globally by 2050.
In addition to Tesla, there are some game players who have already followed this emerging industry trend. Waymo, Google’s former self-driving car project, announced a long-term strategic partnership with UK’s largest car manufacturerJaguar Land Rover to develop the autonomous electric vehicle for Waymo’s driverless transportation service on 27 March, just a few days after Tesla’s fatal car crash. Semiconductor leader Inter Corp showed a vested interest in the future of autonomous transportation with an acquisition of Jerusalem-based auto vision company Mobileye for an eye-popping $15 billion. Another American automaker also established its cooperation with ride-hailing service provider Lyfyto deploy its self-driving cars on Internet platform by 2021.
InChina, self-driving transportation is also an area where several companies have stepped in, as leading automobile makers, such as BYD Auto and Chery, started to conduct tests on autonomous cars. Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, collectively known as BAT, all have intentions of entering the artificial intelligence-driven industry. China is likely to emerge as the world's largest market for autonomous vehicles with a worth of more than US$ 500billion by 2030, according to a McKinsey report released recently.
Autonomous technology will drive change across a range of industries, said StrategyAnalytics president Harvey Cohen, these autonomous vehicles will first appear in a developed business-to-business sector and will reinvent the package delivery and long-haul transportation sectors.
TheStrategy Analytics’s study also pointed out that about $3 trillion in revenues will be generated by the business use of mobility as a service by 2050, as the population density rises in city centers which will push commute time higher and “outstripping the ability of public transport infrastructure to fully meet consumer mobility needs.” The pressure of mounting traffic congestion will drive regulators to include autonomous vehicles as part of their larger public transportation plans. This so-called mobility-as-a-service refers to a shift from personally-owned modes of transportation towards mobility solutions that are consumed as a service.
Self-driving vehicles are expected to free more than 250 million hours of consumers’ commuting time per year in the most congested cities in the world, the study says. It could also change the way cars are used when people no longer have to drive a car themselves. Vehicles could become places where people can have their hair styled and cut, conduct a meeting, or receive a health screening.
The autonomous vehicle is believed to significantly lower transportation costs in terms of travel time reduction, fuel efficiency, and parking benefits, but the deadly crash ofTesla in California has brought more attention to self-driving car’s safety. Ina following statement, Tesla admitted that its Autopilot system was not able to“perfectly prevents all accidents”, but to make them “less likely to occur”.
“Since there are no specific safety performance requirements for autonomous operation, it would leave companies to individually grapple with the difficult questions of how safe is safe enough for self-driving cars,” wrote Mark Rosenker,chairman of US National Transportation Safety Board, in an article published after the California auto-car crash, “this decision should be made by the government in consultation with industry and other experts.”
Though self-driving technology is still facing challenges, it’s no longer a question of if but when autonomous vehicles will hit the road. The emerging of autonomous cars with different levels of self-driving capability – varying from single-lane highway driving to traffic jam autopilot – will be the most significant change in the auto industry in coming years. Meanwhile, the development of driverless technology will shape radically the business modes of not only public transportation but other sectors related.