Will Unmanned Taxis Transform the Future of Mobility in the US?
TapTechNews July 12th news, Zhongxin Jingwei today released an interview with Zhang Ning, vice president of Pony.ai and head of the Beijing R & D Center, talking about the recent hot topic of unmanned online car-hailing.
Zhang Ning said that for unmanned taxis, if it is to achieve large-scale commercialization and a magnitude of 500 to 1,000 units is put into a single city, it is possible to reach the break-even point. Behind the operation of unmanned taxis, enterprises invest a lot, such as dispatching, ground crew maintenance systems, etc. After calculation, in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, when the deployment volume reaches 1,000 units, the operation will reach the break-even point. Beyond this point, for each additional vehicle, our cost will be lower and the gross profit margin will be higher, entering the positive stage of continuous 'self-hematopoiesis'.
He hopes to achieve the landing operation of thousands of unmanned taxis in a single city around 2025 and 2026.
When talking about traditional taxi drivers worrying about having their 'jobs snatched', Zhang Ning said that in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the volume of traditional taxis in a single city is about more than 100,000 units, and there are also more than 100,000 units of online car-hailing, so the total will be about 300,000 units in scale, which means that even if 1,000 unmanned taxis are put in it won't reach 1% of the market share.
Zhang Ning said that essentially from the rational point of view, judging from the current market share, (unmanned taxis) have actually very little impact on the market. In the future, the penetration rate of unmanned driving will definitely gradually increase, especially after crossing the break-even point, there will be an exponential increment, which will definitely come, but this time point will be after 5 years before it can be said to have a structural change to the current traditional travel mode.
According to the introduction, within 5 years, unmanned taxis will not form a huge impact on the traditional travel market (at least more than 30% penetration rate), but it will definitely not happen immediately within 5 years. And within 3 years, unmanned taxis will become a pivotal travel mode, and within 5 years it will occupy a certain market share, and certain changes may still take longer.
When talking about whether unmanned taxis will completely replace humans, the answer given by Zhang Ning is no, because it is determined by people's needs. Unmanned taxis provide standardized services, and no matter how good the service is, it can only meet the needs of some people. Some passengers need communication and interaction between people and differentiated services. From this point of view, the future taxis will move towards a more refined direction.
According to TapTechNews' previous report, as the gradual promotion of unmanned online car-hailing, there are voices pointing out whether unmanned has snatched the jobs of taxis and online car-hailing drivers? And whether it will replace the drivers? The relevant person in charge of the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Bureau said that the Wuhan (taxi) industry is relatively stable, and there are more rumors on the Internet. According to him, Luobo Kuaipei has put more than 400 unmanned vehicles in Wuhan, not the rumored 1,000 vehicles, and the specific number needs to be consulted with the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Economics and Information Technology.