Jidu Automotive, a joint venture created by Chinese vehicle maker Geely and technology giant Baidu, has announced plans to put its self-driving electric car, the Robo-01 Lunar Edition, on sale next year at around $55,000.
The launch of the limited edition car is timed to coincide with China’s lunar exploration project, and is equipped with two LiDAR, a radar in the 5mm range, twelve ultrasonic sensors and twelve high-definition cameras. In terms of performance, it is on a par with the latest vehicles: 100 kWh battery manufactured by CATL, a range of 600 km, and acceleration from zero to 100 in around four seconds.
According to the company, it is “more a robot than a car”, and aims to become the standard for autonomous vehicles. The press release does reveal whether it is a fully autonomous vehicle or only level 4 (allowing complete disengagement from driving and safety in limited areas only) and instead describes it as offering “high-level autonomous driving”. But the fact that the steering wheel is optional and completely detachable leads one to think that it could be designed to achieve level 5 driving, when the law allows.
The company has developed the technology to launch such a vehicle thanks to the experience of more than one million hours of fully autonomous driving of its robotaxi fleets that use the Apollo open-source standard launched in 2017, and in fact, the launch responds to a concept presented in June. However, the problem is its positioning: an autonomous vehicle for private owners, which goes against what all the experts have been saying for years.
Why shouldn’t we all own a self-driving car? Quite simply, because if we do we’ll worsen the congestion on our roads. If we all simply trade in our petrol and diesel vehicles for electric autonomous cars, we will simply extend with the bad habits we’ve developed over the years. It’s easy to imagine a scenario where owners have them drive around the block so as to avoid looking for parking when carrying out a short errand, or sending them to pick up the shopping, taking the children to school or countless other “missions” that will end up creating even bigger traffic jams than now, but in which many of the vehicles would simply be empty.
Obviously, this scenario doesn’t bother carmakers, and is more attractive than selling fleets of autonomous vehicles managed by a few companies that we would rent as needed. But in terms of efficiency, continuing to manufacture vehicles destined to remain stationary 97% of the time and which, in addition, tend to reduce their occupancy rate even further by incorporating the possibility of the car driving completely empty is simply irresponsible.
What seems to be clear with the launch of an autonomous vehicle with an optional detachable steering wheel for end users is that the technology, which many have dismissed as impossible until many years from now, has already reached a level of maturity thanks to the application of machine learning. The sheer size of the Chinese automotive market, equivalent to the United States, Europe and Japan combined, should generate economies of scale that would make the technology available relatively quickly.
Wouldn’t it make for a better world if in addition to developing technology we could also acquire some common sense to go with it?
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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.
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The post Is Autonomous Driving About to Take a Wrong Turn? appeared first on The Good Men Project.