Chinese tech giants and electric vehicle (EV) makers are in a heated race to find breakthroughs in autonomous driving, which analysts and company executives say remains years away from consumer applications.
At this year's Shanghai Auto Show, China's largest car exhibition that concluded last Thursday, the country's major home-grown EV makers showcased their progress in autonomous technologies.
Li Auto, a Beijing-based EV maker, revealed its new City NOA (Navigation on ADAS - advanced driver-assistance system) for cars equipped with its AD Max 3.0 autonomous driving system. City NOA will "be able to function without high-precision maps and perceive, decide and plan in real time like a human driver", according to Lang Xianpeng, vice-president of Li Auto's Autonomous Driving group.
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Xpeng, backed by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, is using its own proprietary autonomous driving software called X-NGP (navigation-guided pilot) in the G6 mid-size SUV, which is capable of recognising traffic lights at intersections, changing lanes, overtaking other vehicles and executing left and right turns.
Ahead of the show, Huawei launched ADS 2.0, which the Chinese telecoms equipment giant claims is safer than the first generation version of ADS and does not rely on high-precision maps. Some cars have already been equipped with the new system, including a high-end version of AITO M5, the company said.
Internet search giant Baidu launched its intelligent driving solution - Apollo City Driving Max - which the company said is the only solution in China that offers users a "coherent experience on urban roads using pure vision perception".
One of Baidu's driverless robotaxi vehicles for its Apollo Go service seen on a road in Wuhan, Hubei province, on February 24, 2023. Photo: Reuters alt=One of Baidu's driverless robotaxi vehicles for its Apollo Go service seen on a road in Wuhan, Hubei province, on February 24, 2023. Photo: Reuters>
However, level-3 (L3) autonomous driving - the lowest level that does not require hands on the steering wheel at all times - remains out of reach for now, even as the companies all express an ambition to get there soon.
Most intelligent vehicles in China are classified as L2 or L2+, which stipulate that the driver must be alert and ready to take control at any time. L3 is considered a "hands-off" system, while L4 would allow drivers to take their eyes off the road. L5 is a fully automated system without any need for human intervention.
Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei's smart car business unit, told media during the Shanghai Auto Show that ADS 2.0 "is approaching L3", and the company expects the regulatory framework to be improved to allow for greater experimentation so that China can "hopefully achieve the commercialisation of L3 by 2025".
"Currently, intelligent driving is mainly focused on intelligent assisted driving, which is at the level of L2+ or L2++," said Rob Chu, Baidu corporate vice-president and general manager of Apollo Self Driving.
"We are now developing L3," he added, "which means that for consumers, it will help to alleviate driving fatigue."
TuSimple, a US-listed company that focuses on autonomous technology for trucks, said it expects commercial vehicles to realise full autonomous driving before passenger vehicles. The company has sought to leapfrog L3 and go straight to L4 technology, but it sees challenges in getting there because it lacks close cooperation with original equipment manufacturers, according to TuSimple chairman and co-founder Chen Mo.
Analysts say challenges advancing beyond L3 come from both regulatory and technical bottlenecks.
"It will take a long time to achieve real self driving, as it requires the technology, law, and industry to work together," said Zhang Yi, CEO of research firm iiMedia.
Liao Xuhua, an analyst with Beijing-based consulting firm Analysys, said that L3 applications will be limited for a long time into the future, "because it relies on high-precision maps and rich testing data, which is unlikely to be available for mass-produced vehicles in just a few years".
Liao added that China's autonomous driving technology has "caught up rapidly" and is now "on par with" that of the US, which started earlier and has been led by Tesla.
So far, China's central government has yet to lay any legal groundwork for L3 or more advanced autonomous driving technologies. So even if carmakers successfully develop L3 technologies, they may have no way to commercialise it.
"The entire autonomous driving market is still at the stage of moving from L2 to L3," said Guo Tao, a researcher at Kandong, a research institute. "More advanced autonomous driving technologies are still immature, and there are still a series of legal issues."
Guo said it will take a long time to reach large-scale commercial applications, and he expects a turning point to occur around 2030.
Shenzhen recently tried to advance L3 at the local level. Last August, the government of the southern Chinese tech hub released new rules that include defining who bears responsibility in the case of a collision. Similar policies have not yet been adopted elsewhere in the country.
Not all carmakers have been taken in by autonomous driving. BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu sparked debate with comments he made in late March, when he called autonomous driving "nonsense" and "hokum".
"It's ultimately a higher standard of assisted driving," said Wang, who compared the EV industry's obsession with outdoing each other in autonomous driving to The Emperor's New Clothes folktale, suggesting the technology is all talk.
BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu unveils the Yangwang U8 luxury SUV on February 19, 2023. Photo: Handout alt=BYD founder and chairman Wang Chuanfu unveils the Yangwang U8 luxury SUV on February 19, 2023. Photo: Handout>
BYD, one of China's leading EV brands, has seen rapid growth without plans for an in-house autonomous driving system. In March, the company posted its best quarterly profit on the back of overtaking Tesla in EV sales. The company combines sales of fully electric cars with those of hybrid vehicles, which Tesla does not sell.
Huawei's Yu took exception to Wang's take, later saying that the BYD executive "does not understand this technology, or he said it deliberately" to criticise the industry.
"I believe [Wang] is specifically referring to L4 autonomous driving," TuSimple's Chen told the Post at a press conference. "I can't refute him, because it is true that commercialisation has not been completed."
Amid the more theoretical debates about the technology's future, companies are grappling with a more immediate problem: whether to push ahead with research and development of L4 and L5 technologies or to focus on accelerating the commercialisation of existing L2 technologies.
Zhang from iiMedia suggested that the industry is divided on the matter. Newer carmakers are working hard to promote autonomous driving, but traditional carmakers tend to be more sceptical of such technologies, he said.
Some smaller companies, without a strong capital base to support the development of cutting-edge technologies, may prefer to stick with advancing L2 adoption.
The start-up Hongjing Drive has been focusing on mass producing L2 and L2+ products for the past couple of years, setting aside its initial goal of developing L4 technologies when it was founded in 2018. In 2021, it accounted for 27 per cent of L2 systems sold in China, according to data from research firm GGII.
