🚗 From License Issuance to Market Access: The Advanced Autonomous Driving Era is Accelerating

🛣️ Policy Support for Rapid Development of Advanced Autonomous Driving

Recently, the "Basic Information on the Joint Body for the Entry and Road Traffic Pilot of Smart Connected Vehicles" was released, announcing the first batch of 9 companies in the country to carry out the L3 level of autonomous driving road traffic pilot. This is only half a year after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "Notice on Carrying Out the Pilot Work of Smart Connected Vehicle Access and Road Traffic" at the end of 2023, and many companies obtained L3 test licenses. From license issuance to market access, the era of advanced autonomous driving is accelerating.

📈 Market Development and Policy Support

NIO's data shows that as of June 2024, the total mileage of NIO's pilot assistance users has reached 1 billion kilometers, with 1.03 million kilometers of urban verification available, covering 726 cities. Users are using advanced driving assistance more and more frequently. At the same time, data accumulation is also supporting the advanced autonomous driving technology to become safer and more reliable. NIO is also one of the 9 selected companies. The 9 companies cover three major categories of passenger cars, buses, and trucks, and advanced autonomous driving will cover more scenarios.

📋 Further Addressing Regulatory Constraints

It is understood that the organization and implementation of this pilot is divided into five stages: pilot application, product access pilot, road traffic pilot, pilot suspension and exit, and assessment adjustment. The pilot application process is participated in the form of voluntary application. At present, the car companies entering the pilot have only completed the selection of the pilot application stage, and do not represent that the smart connected vehicles with autonomous driving functions have obtained access permission or are allowed to go on the road. It is necessary to complete the product access pilot, road traffic pilot and other links to truly go on the road. However, the pilot work will encourage participating companies to increase R&D investment in smart connected technology, accelerate the development and breakthrough of related technologies, and improve the overall technical level.

🏢 Preparing for the Commercialization of Advanced Autonomous Driving

"Unmanned driving will be realized, but the path is relatively tortuous." The current situation is that unmanned driving can only be tested and experienced within a very small range. Urban NOA is the threshold of unmanned driving and also the real demand of user experience at the current stage. Policy support, and accelerating the advancement of urban NOA, can make unmanned driving move forward.

📘 Conclusion

Although both policies and companies are accelerating the development of advanced autonomous driving, the reality the industry faces is that cost and profitability are restricting commercial applications. At present, a large number of tested L4 level autonomous driving taxis (Robotaxi) are mostly free experiences, although some are charged locally, but they have not yet been included in the formal commercial operation. In the past period, more than 10 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen have designated autonomous driving areas, allowing autonomous driving vehicles to carry out commercial trials such as taxis and urban buses during specific periods, but there are many limitations due to few vehicles, limited pilot areas, and consumer safety concerns.