Beijing Takes First Steps Toward Creating the World’s Biggest Autonomous-Vehicle City
By Bradley Berman — Lead Editor
If you want to understand the future of transportation, the place to visit is China. That’s why last week I made the trek from Northern California to Beijing for Auto China 2018, the largest automotive trade show in the world’s largest car market.
Chinese consumers this year are expected to buy 29 million vehicles — up from 22 million passenger cars in 2017. That staggering level of growth that will continue to separate China from every other country, including the United States with its robust 17 million sales. The potential impact on the environment and traffic congestion is of great consequence to Beijing residents and an obvious concern for China’s leadership.
It’s clear from my time at the Beijing auto show that China sees electric vehicles as a primary solution. EVs were only two percent of sales in China last year, but a nationwide quota will ensure that it grows to 10 percent this year — or nearly three million battery-powered vehicles. Local jurisdictions will play a major role, utilizing controls such as making consumers who want gas cars to wait years to obtain the required license plate (or not be allowed to drive on certain days) if operating an internal combustion vehicle — but providing immediate access and unlimited use to drivers of EVs.
That helps explain why the expansive Beijing show was filled with battery-powered vehicles.
This event features 174 EV models with 124 of them developed domestically. In addition to EVs from unfamiliar Chinese brands, Nissan, Honda, BMW, and others this week unveiled dedicated world-class electric cars to be made in China for Chinese customers.
As a contributor to the DAV Foundation — and our work to build a blockchain-based transportation platform for all the world’s markets — I was on the lookout for autonomous vehicles at Auto China 2018. It took a few hours of strolling through the expansive New International Exhibition Center before I found the Sitech DEV1, with a bright orange Mobike bicycle sitting atop the compact car. Mobike, headquartered in Beijing, is the world’s first and largest stationless bike-sharing service. Its bicycles are a common sight on the city’s streets.
Sitech is the EV brand for First Automotive Works (FAW), one of China’s “Big Four” automakers. Production of the DEV1 is slated for the end of this year. The car, which is priced for around $15,000 USD, will be sold in boutique stores in shopping malls, rather than traditional car dealerships. By next year, the company could offer two other electric cars — a smaller subcompact and a model slightly bigger than the DEV1.
Sitech is based in Guiyang, located in the Guizhou province of southwest China. There are tens of thousands of cameras on Guiyang streets, which reportedly can use centralized algorithms to locate any individual in about two minutes. Such a system raises obvious privacy concerns for Westerners, but could achieve an extraordinarily efficient multimodal mobility network made up of small electric cars and shared bicycles.
Sitech apparently intends for its three vehicles, shared bicycles, and big data to roll up into a single integrated mobility service. The project has received about $1 billion in government funding. The company has offices in Beijing and Hangzhou, design support in Turin, Italy — and a research office in Silicon Valley.
The Family Trip Reinvented
An integrated data-supported carshare/bike-share service might be well suited to China’s younger, urban residents. But China remains a family-oriented multi-generational society. “Our research indicates that there is a big demand for family trips in China,” Xiaogang Xu, president of Changan Oushang Automobile Institute, told me at the Beijing auto show. “To address the transportation needs of big families in China, we developed the Oshan electric concept vehicle.” Changan is also one of China’s “Big Four” automakers.
The gorgeous, futuristic Oshan concept — which bears some resemblance to the fully autonomous Mercedes-Benz F015 concept vehicle — is highly connected. “In addition to home and work, the car of the future will be a third space,” said Xiaogang. He explained that a family’s screens — television, computers, and cell phones — will integrate with the vehicle so that it remains connected to the family’s data, infotainment, and social-media needs. “We will use artificial intelligence to give each car a special ID to connect with its owners,” said Xiaogang.
The cabin of the vehicle is designed like a living room, which includes a sofa-like third row where older family members can recline. “Chinese people are concerned about family and unity,” said Xiaogang. He believes such a vehicle could be put into production within five years. “This concept car is only a start,” he said. “Chinese technology is moving fast.”
The third of three autonomous vehicles that I found at Auto China 2018 was Renault’s EZ-GO concept. The French automaker calls the concept a “robotic taxi.” Like the Oshan, it takes a holistic social view by using an extending ramp to allow passengers to enter while standing or in a wheelchair. It’s designed as a shared carpool vehicle in a crowded city like Beijing — and allows its riders to face other for social interaction. Renault first unveiled the EZ-GO in March at the Geneva Motor Show.
The Stage Is Set
It was fascinating to discover only these three autonomous vehicles at the large show — slow baby steps toward a Chinese self-driving mobility system that could quickly become a rapid sprint.
As with EVs — which grew from a marginal market to a world leader in a matter of a few years — China is poised to establish an autonomous-driving ecosystem faster and bigger than any other country. The potential for unprecedented scale is extraordinary. Nearly 300 Chinese cities and regions have introduced so-called smart-city projects. DiDi, which is China’s Uber, has more than 400 million users of its ridesharing service and is working on autonomous-vehicle technology.
The role of blockchain in these transportation developments — as well as China’s general policy regarding blockchain — is not well known. But whatever technology is used, whether highly centralized by a government entity in a country like China or a completely decentralized blockchain-based platform like DAV in most other parts of the world, it’s readily apparent from what I saw in Beijing that the world’s biggest cities will soon fill up with electric, shared, autonomous vehicles. And its citizens will gain access to mobility not by driving but via integrated, data-driven mobility networks.
