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Can China repeat its EV success with robotaxis
In Beijing's Yizhuang district, driverless vehicles have become a common sight. Robotaxis weave through traffic alongside ordinary cars, while autonomous delivery vans glide along the inside lane as they carry packages to collection points.
The district has become one of China's testing grounds for autonomous driving, with companies including Baidu, WeRide and Pony.ai operating commercial robotaxi services within designated areas.
Booking a ride requires little more than opening an app. Within minutes, a robotaxi pulls up with nobody behind the wheel. After confirming the journey on a touchscreen, the vehicle merges into Beijing's dense traffic, navigating buses, cyclists, scooters and pedestrians with little hesitation.
The technology is still evolving. But a bigger question now looms: can Chinese companies turn robotaxis into another sector they dominate globally, as they have with electric vehicles (EVs)?
China's autonomous driving companies already have a powerful advantage - the industrial ecosystem that helped turn the country into the world's largest EV market.
Unlike Tesla, which designs much of its technology in-house, China's self-driving industry is built around a network of companies.
Established carmakers including BYD, Chery, Geely, and SAIC build the cars, while specialist firms develop the software.
Autonomous vehicles rely on many of the same batteries, sensors, chips and onboard computers as electric cars.
Because those supply chains already exist at enormous scale, companies can develop technology faster and at a lower cost.
"What you see is a pace of innovation and adaptation in the Chinese EV industry that I don't think is matched anywhere else around the world," says Kyle Chan, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.
China's EV capacity doesn't just stop there. It actually spills over into other related industries through something that I call these overlapping tech industrial ecosystems.
Government policy has also played a role. Pilot programmes in several cities allow companies to test the technology on some public roads.
But China also offers something else to firms that are trying to make the technology smarter: complex driving conditions.
A single journey through Beijing can require an autonomous vehicle to deal with buses, scooters, cyclists, pedestrians and unpredictable traffic.
"The traffic environment here in China is very complex," Maeve Zhang, chief marketing officer at WeRide, told the BBC.
That diversity of road users generates vast amounts of data to help improve software.
Although driving data from China is useful, there are other challenging conditions abroad which could hinder any rapid expansion in overseas markets.
"In the Middle East, the temperature is very high. In South East Asia, there is heavy rain... and in Switzerland, winter temperatures can be very, very low," says Zhang.
Extreme temperatures can reduce battery performance, while heavy rain, snow and fog interfere with the cameras and sensors that autonomous vehicles rely on.
Robotaxis are only one part of China's autonomous driving ambitions.
QCraft is applying its autonomous software to passenger cars, as well as autonomous buses and delivery vehicles. It says its buses already operate in more than 20 Chinese cities and it is expanding overseas.
"It's very promising on the technology side that maybe the next five, seven, at most 10 years, it will get into everybody's life," says James Yu, the company's chairman and chief executive.
Chinese companies are expanding globally, and fast. Their biggest commercial competitors are in the US.
Waymo, Alphabet's robotaxi business, remains the commercial leader, operating paid driverless services in several US cities. Amazon-owned Zoox and Tesla are expanding more cautiously, while Uber has abandoned the development of its own autonomous vehicles, which had been marred by a fatal accident in 2018.
Uber, and its ride-hailing rival Lyft, are now partnering with Chinese firms.
That gives them automatic "access to millions of customers that they wouldn't have if they created their own app," says Tu Le, founder of consultancy Sino Auto Insights.
Through these partnerships, they're able to commercialise and broaden their scope.
Although Chinese companies are able to manufacture cheaply, Waymo has spent years building expertise in customer service and the app technology.
"Having experienced Waymo and the WeRides and the Ponys... I would have to say the user experience for Waymo is much better than all the other competitors. I feel like Waymo is really becoming a standard mode of transportation for California," says Tu Le.
Perceptions also differ across markets.
In the US, unions have warned robotaxis could displace taxi, delivery and freight drivers.
China's policymakers present automation as a remedy for its shrinking workforce but government censorship of dissenting voices makes it difficult to gauge opinions in the wider population.
President Xi Jinping has promoted AI and robotics as part of China's drive to develop "new quality productive forces" - that will create jobs and boost economic growth.
And so there are incentives and impetus for companies to invest in the technology and expand.
One of the industry's arguments is that autonomous vehicles could improve mobility for people who cannot easily drive themselves.
If we can bring the cost down for a robotaxi ride so that it's as cheap - or maybe even cheaper - than hailing an Uber with a normal driver, then it really helps broaden mobility," Le says. "Elderly folks, folks that are disabled - these robotaxis really allow them a lot more ability to travel.
But there are still many concerns around safety.
Earlier this year, Baidu's Apollo Go service suffered a software malfunction that left about 100 robotaxis stranded in Wuhan.
Some passengers reported being unable to leave vehicles because the doors had automatically locked.
Services were suspended for several weeks although Baidu has said it remains on track to launch in the UK later this year.
But the episode highlighted how failures can quickly undermine public confidence.
Similar issues have emerged elsewhere. GM shut down its robotaxi division Cruise to "refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles".
California regulators had suspended its permit following a 2023 crash in which one of its robotaxis dragged a pedestrian several metres after she had been struck by another vehicle.
That is one reason some analysts say robotaxis will be harder to export than electric vehicles.
Operating robotaxis is more difficult than traditional carmaking, or even ride-hailing platforms, as it faces issues like complicated regulatory approvals, detailed mapping, local operating teams and public trust.
This is something even homegrown brands have struggled with in the US.
They may also face growing geopolitical barriers. Unlike EVs, robotaxis generate a great deal of mapping, camera and location data. That makes them particularly vulnerable to national security concerns in overseas markets.
Despite the challenges of rolling out the technology, WeRide says regulators are becoming receptive to autonomous driving.
"We see very positive attitudes and very good policies and regulations coming out from governments both here in China and in some other international markets," Zhang says.
For Chan, however, robotaxis represent something much bigger than a new mode of transport.
China is trying to create this sort of high-tech economy that's digitally connected, that's AI-powered, and that builds on its existing strengths today in batteries, EVs, motors and other related technology.
Additional reporting by Jaltson Akkanath Chummar
Source: BBC
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