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- [Announcer] Every morning since April,
more than a hundred self-driving taxis
leave this operation center
and take to the streets of Shanghai.
- If you want to call for our AutoX car,
you would just go onto the app.
- [Announcer] The autonomous fleet's goal?
Navigate the chaotic
traffic of the tiny city
and sweep up data on how other
vehicles and people move.
Each bit of information is then fed back
to the servers of Chinese startup, AutoX,
perfecting algorithms that
its CEO, Jianxiong Xiao,
says will soon make China a
nation of self-driving cars.
- If the pandemic in
countries like U.S. continue,
then the traffic is not coming back.
The pandemic give us
a head-start advantage
compared to players outside China.
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- [Announcer] When
lockdowns across the U.S.
forced American companies
like Alphabet's Waymo,
Ford's Argo and Uber,
to suspend the vast majority
of its on-the-road testing in March,
AutoX was getting back on the road
because China was emerging from lockdown.
- Here in the United States,
most of the companies have had to stop
all of their on-road testing,
having to rely almost
entirely on simulation work.
Having a few months of additional
time to do that testing
will probably benefit
the Chinese companies.
- [Announcer] Auto analysts
say American companies
are still the industry's leaders.
But Chinese startups are using the time
that the pandemic has
bought them to get ahead.
According to Boston Consulting Group,
since 2019, Chinese companies,
including Baidu, DiDi, and AutoX,
more than doubled their fleets
of self-driving vehicles
on Chinese roads to 260.
The urgency to limit
face-to-face interactions
during the pandemic
has also helped companies
raise $1.4 billion
so far this year.
- If we can make the car fully automatic,
you don't need a driver.
It's actually much safer
considering COVID-19.
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- [Announcer] This is the
Shenzhen headquarters of AutoX
and during the past few months,
the team has been working
on a new radar system
that can see a traffic light
or another car that's 1,600 feet away.
- There's a camera-cleaning system,
so that our car can drive
under heavy raining situation.
- [Announcer] Xiao, says
he expects the technology
to be first widely adopted in China,
since not many people
have driver's licenses.
- In the U.S. culture-wise,
everyone know how to drive,
but not many people in China
can afford to have a car.
And that's why shared
mobility is a must-have.
There's no other choice.
- [Announcer] AutoX is
unveiling a revolutionary way.
- [Announcer] AutoX also
has two R and D centers
in Silicon Valley and San Diego
to test and feed
information back to China.
Xiao says the pandemic
accelerated his company's plans.
In April, it opened what he says
is China's largest self-driving
taxi operation center in Shanghai.
From the start,
the Chinese government has
played a critical role.
In late February,
Beijing said a third of
all cars produced in China
should be self-driving by 2025.
- That's really where the
biggest advantage is going to be.
- [Announcer] Sam
Abuelsamid is a car analyst,
who's been researching the development
of self-driving cars in China and the U.S.
for more than 13 years.
- On deploying that the largest adoption
of automated driving
technology in the next decade
will be in China.
The addressable market in China
is much larger than anywhere else.
And the government policies in China
definitely have the potential
to increase that adoption.
- [Announcer] In Shanghai,
the local government
has created a special 30-mile zone
where companies can
test the latest features
of their self-driving cars.
- This looks like a normal bus stop
but this is one of the places
where people can call for
our AutoX self-driving car.
- [Announcer] The most
important technology
that the local government installed
are the 5G sensors along the roads
that help to quickly stream
loads of data to the taxis.
- The white boxes, basically
they have the transmitters.
There are some cameras that are installed
on the side of the road.
So what they do, they
would detect the objects.
- [Announcer] This infrastructure
is called vehicle-to-everything or V2X.
Auto analysts say,
the U.S. has rolled out
nearly 100 V2X projects,
far less than Beijing's requirement
to cover 90% of highways in
China with the technology
by the end of the year.
- If there's a truck in front
of the automated vehicle,
that sensor's not gonna be able to see
what's on the other side of that truck
or what's around the corner.
But adding V2X allows the vehicle
to extend its situational
awareness beyond line of sight.
And that's something that I think
the U.S. is definitely further behind.
- [Announcer] To catch up,
analysts say American
self-driving car makers themselves
would have to spend billions
of dollars for V2X fitted roads
or create vehicles that are equipped
with sophisticated technology
that wouldn't need to
rely on 5G roads at all.
While Waymo and Ford's Argo said
they restarted some of their
road operations in May,
analysts say the bulk of
U.S. testing will be limited
until the pandemic is
brought under control.
Auto analysts say,
the country to first mass-produce
self-driving vehicles
will be the one to shape the future
of not just shared transportation
but other key industries
that have seen a boost
during the pandemic.
- Goods delivery is likely
to be a better opportunity
in the near term for automated vehicles.
The trend towards more e-commerce
is going to continue and accelerate
and people are going to be
relying more on deliveries.
- [Announcer] And AutoX CEO, Xiao,
wants to make sure his cars are ready
when that transition happens.
- The Chinese market is very huge.
You can do in one city in China,
you can use the same technology,
the same business model,
you can copy in the
following 200 city in China.
Another country may have
only three major cities.
Then the maximum you can
do is multiply by three.
There's not much financial return.
But in China, we can make tons of money.
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