Driverless taxis that won the number plates of the first road test vehicles in Chengdu. Courtesy of Chengdu High-tech Zone
Chengdu, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Recently, on the highway around the Xinchuan Innovation and Technology Park in Chengdu High-tech Zone, 8 driverless taxis and 4 driverless buses are conducting open road automatic driving tests. Not long ago, Chengdu issued the city's first batch of road test vehicle number plates for these 12 test vehicles, which was seen as a signal for Chengdu to accelerate the development of intelligent and connected vehicles.
"This batch of road-tested autonomous vehicles is based on the Baidu autonomous driving platform (apollo) and uses the latest technology of the platform." Du Yu, deputy general manager of the Sichuan Business Department of Intelligent Transportation of Baidu (China) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Baidu Company), said in an interview that the road test is an important part of the intelligent driving project of Chengdu 5G Smart City, and will also provide autonomous driving travel services including unmanned buses and unmanned taxis to the public in the future.
In December last year, 10 cities, including Chengdu, were identified by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as the second batch of pilot cities for the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent networked vehicles; the 2022 Chengdu Municipal Government Work Report pointed out that it is necessary to accelerate the transformation and development of Longquan Automobile City, build a high-level automobile industry research and development and manufacturing base, build a Sino-German intelligent networked vehicle test base, and strive to create a national vehicle networking pilot zone. In the future, how will Chengdu's automotive industry chain be transformed and upgraded, and participate in the competition for intelligent and connected vehicle outlets?
Many places seize the commanding heights of the industry
At present, the automotive industry is experiencing a new round of changes caused by new energy, intelligent networking and other technologies. In the "second half" of the automotive industry's transformation, intelligent and connected vehicles have attracted much attention. As a carrier of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, big data, and cloud computing, intelligent connected vehicles will provide answers for smart transportation and smart city construction.
It is understood that the intelligent networked vehicle industry has now been included in the national top-level planning. Since 2021, important documents such as the Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Access to Intelligent Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Products, the Management Specifications for Road Testing and Demonstration Applications of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Trial), and several Regulations on the Safety Management of Automotive Data Security (Trial) have been successively introduced, providing policy support for promoting industrial development.
According to the "Comprehensive Evaluation Index and Development Guide for the Development of China's Urban Intelligent Connected Vehicle Industry" jointly issued by the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle Innovation Center and the Society of Automotive Engineers of China in December last year, relevant cities in China are accelerating industrial upgrading and transformation, strengthening industrial shortcomings in artificial intelligence, chips, information and communications, and accelerating the layout of new parts, solutions, and intelligent networked vehicle integration.
In order to seize the commanding heights of the development of intelligent and connected vehicles, many places have carried out policy and regulatory innovation, supported the construction of test demonstration areas, and encouraged test demonstration and commercial exploration. Among them, some urban policy and regulation innovations have entered the "deep water area", for example, Beijing has built an intelligent networked vehicle policy pilot zone on the basis of a high-level demonstration area, moderately advanced and systematically built a policy system of intelligent networked vehicle road testing, demonstration application, commercial operation services, and roadside infrastructure construction and operation.
In terms of the construction of the pilot area of the demonstration area, the data shows that nearly 30 provinces and cities across the country have issued more than 800 test licenses to more than 80 enterprises, opened more than 4,000 kilometers of test roads, and the total test mileage has exceeded 10 million kilometers. Taking Shanghai as an example, in March 2018, Shanghai demarcated the first phase of intelligent networked vehicles to open test roads and issued the first batch of test number plates in the country. According to the "Shanghai Intelligent Connected Vehicle Test and Demonstration Implementation Measures" released in October last year, Shanghai Intelligent Connected Vehicles has opened 243 560-kilometer test roads, issued 254 licenses to 25 enterprises, and tested a total mileage of more than 3 million kilometers.
Driverless buses that won the number plates of the first batch of road test vehicles in Chengdu. Courtesy of Chengdu High-tech Zone
Chengdu competes for the outlet of intelligent networked vehicles
In contrast, Chengdu's intelligent and connected car industry still has a lot of room for development. In order to promote the development of the industry, Chengdu actively introduces leading enterprises to land. In June 2020, Chengdu High-tech Zone and Baidu reached a strategic cooperation on the intelligent and connected automotive industry to accelerate the construction of Sichuan's first intelligent driving benchmarking project. After the project landed, Baidu and Chengdu High-tech Zone Electronic Information Industry Development Co., Ltd. jointly carried out "intelligent" transformation of the one-way 30 km (60 km in both directions) road around the Xinchuan Innovation and Technology Park, aiming to create the infrastructure and demonstration application environment required for the whole cycle from R&D testing to commercial landing, and to build a 5G-based intelligent networked vehicle demonstration area.
"Autonomous driving and vehicle-road collaboration are still in the blank field of technology application in Chengdu and even Sichuan Province, and the construction of the Chengdu 5G Smart City Intelligent Driving Project can play a breakthrough, leading and driving role in the future development of Chengdu's intelligent network industry." Du Yu said that the transformation of intelligent road infrastructure has applied a variety of intelligent devices, such as lidar, millimeter wave radar, AI cameras, edge computing units, RSUs, etc., which will open up a broad market space for the transportation industry for ecological enterprises and lay the foundation for the future development of the industry.
Tan Xin, project manager of Chengdu 5G Smart City Intelligent Driving Project of Chengdu High-tech Zone Electronic Information Industry Development Co., Ltd., said that the government of Chengdu High-tech Zone is vigorously introducing intelligent networked vehicle-related talents and enterprises to supplement the chain and strengthen the chain, and by giving play to the leading role of the industry's leading ecology, opening up the list of project construction opportunities and more application scenarios, attracting different types of intelligent network enterprises to land in Chengdu High-tech Zone, driving the development of the intelligent network industry in the region.
"After the introduction of industry leaders, Chengdu can encourage leading enterprises to build innovation platforms, promote cross-border cooperation between large, medium and small enterprises, and achieve technological breakthroughs in the field of intelligent and connected vehicles." Xie Yan, an iNED researcher at the New Economic Development Research Institute, said.
At the same time, Chengdu's electronic information industry, which has broken through the trillion yuan mark, will also provide assistance for the development of the intelligent networked automobile industry. Xie Yan analyzed that Chengdu has gathered a number of high-tech enterprises in the fields of automatic driving, intelligent cockpit, vehicle-road collaboration, etc., forming advantages in integrated circuits, on-board chips, on-board displays, intelligent terminals, etc. Some visual cameras, lidar, millimeter wave radar and other parts manufacturers have emerged, with the potential for the development of intelligent networked vehicles, "Chengdu can give play to the advantages of the electronic information industry, continue technological innovation and transformation, and drive a group of software system integration developers to do intelligent chips, on-board chips, key algorithms, Technology research and development in sensor hardware and other aspects. In addition, under the background of the construction of the twin-city economic circle in the Chengdu-Chongqing region, Chengdu, Chongqing and surrounding cities can jointly build a vehicle networking platform that can support multiple applications, which is also one of the directions in which Chengdu's intelligent and connected vehicle industry can exert its strength. ”
Peng Yiqiang, a professor at the School of Automotive and Transportation of Xihua University, pointed out that there are many intersections between intelligent and connected vehicles and the electronic information industry, and Chengdu can make full use of the existing electronic information industry foundation, strengthen technical communication with the automobile industry, understand the relevant standards of hardware and software at the vehicle regulation level, and integrate into the wave of intelligent networked vehicle development as soon as possible.
"In addition, Chengdu should base itself on localization, obtain a complete industrial technology chain, accelerate the intelligent upgrading of infrastructure, carry out vehicle networking and vehicle-road collaborative tests; on the basis of establishing an L4-level driving automation open test base, strengthen the application of artificial intelligence technology in new energy and intelligent networked vehicles, and seize the grasp of the integration of intelligent networked vehicles with artificial intelligence technology." Peng Yiqiang said. (End)