Shanghai Jiading Launches Self-driving Online Taxis, CCTV News' Zhu Guangquan Officially Promotes It

Yesterday morning, Didi's self-driving cars were open to the public in Shanghai for trial rides. Users can sign up for a trial ride on the Didi Chuxing App and truly experience the thrill of driverless driving.

On June 27, Didi's self-driving ride-hailing service was officially launched in Jiading District, Shanghai, and customers can take a free trial ride.

Users only need to apply for the experience on the Didi Chuxing App. After the review is passed,You can call for a free test ride in an autonomous driving vehicle on the autonomous driving test section in Jiading District, Shanghai.

However, the project is still in the testing phase, and each self-driving car is not truly "unmanned" but will be equipped with a safety officer, and passengers must sign a written notice of responsibility before taking a test ride. So, do you dare to "take a test ride"?

CCTV News official recommendation: Zhu Guangquan's test ride commentary

Yesterday was the first day of the trial ride. CCTV host Zhu Guangquan and CGTN reporter Wei Ran experienced it in Beijing and Shanghai respectively.

With the commentary of the "joker" Zhu Guangquan, this test ride video has received widespread attention online.

Zhu Guangquan takes everyone to experience the entire process of booking an autonomous driving car online

Therefore, in the video, the "Phoenix Wing Purple Gold Crown" mentioned by Zhu Guangquan actually refers to the laser radar and camera equipped on the top of the car.

It is understood that the roof is installed 1 64-line lidar, 2 16-line lidars, 7 cameras, and 4 radars.All together, it is equivalent to a car having 14 "eyes", which is far more than just "keeping an eye on all directions".

The seven cameras on the roof can cover a 360-degree area around the car.Image data is used to perceive information about surrounding obstacles and road conditions, including the location, direction, and speed of the obstacles.

The camera and lidar work together to transmit the "seen" obstacles and road conditions information to the core brain center installed at the bottom of the vehicle's trunk, which ultimately makes a decision.

Test ride experience: Human-machine collaboration is required, and take over when necessary

The test ride process is not complicated. After users sign up on the Didi App and pass the review, they can call an autonomous driving vehicle within the Shanghai Jiading autonomous driving test section. The reservation process is similar to that of ordinary online car-hailing. The test ride route passes through office areas, subway stations, Shanghai Automobile Exhibition Center and other areas.

However, in order to ensure safety, according to relevant government regulations, passengers who experience autonomous driving must meet certain conditions.You need to sign the "Autonomous Driving Experience Notice" before the test ride.

At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of autonomous driving vehicles, passengers are currently required to get on and off the vehicle at fixed stations.

During the test ride, the passengers were surprised to find thatIt turns out that autonomous driving is not "unmanned".

This is because before autonomous driving is truly commercialized,To ensure the safety of the trip, the autonomous driving test vehicle needs to be equipped with two safety officers in accordance with relevant regulations.They are safety driver and safety guide. They can take over the vehicle at any time to deal with emergencies.

It has to be said that the heavy rain in Shanghai on the day of the live broadcast brought considerable challenges to the test ride, as it had a significant impact on the grip of the tires, the accuracy of the positioning system, and the clarity of the radar and camera images.

Didi COO Meng Xing further explained in the live broadcast that when the rainfall is heavy, raindrops, puddles on the ground, and splashing water may all cause noise to the lidar.An algorithm is needed to effectively remove these noise points, otherwise it will easily cause various emergency brakes.

in additionPedestrians holding umbrellas on rainy days will also increase the difficulty of AI recognition.The machine needs to have good training data coverage and sufficient algorithm redundancy to ensure recognition. If there are vehicles or pedestrians driving in the opposite direction causing interference, a safety driver needs to take over in these special cases.

Meng Xing once said that by 2030, Didi plans to operate more than 1 million self-driving cars on its platform.Self-driving taxis will be deployed in areas where Didi Chuxing vehicles are in short supply.

However, Meng Xing also admitted that autonomous driving itself actually has certain limitations. Some roads and areas will never be suitable for autonomous driving, and the capabilities and value of human drivers will become increasingly higher.It will take a long time for autonomous driving to be commercialized.

The number of cities open for road testing in China has reached 20

In May this year, Changsha opened driverless taxis, becoming the first self-driving taxi service open to the public in China. At that time, many people looked at Changsha with envy. Now, Shanghai is following suit.

These measures have made us deeply feel that autonomous driving is getting closer and closer to us.

In fact, my country has also started to promote it from all aspects since 2016. With the support of relevant policies of local governments, the speed of road testing has also been greatly accelerated.

As of the end of last year,20 cities across the country have issued autonomous driving road test licenses.Including Beijing, Baoding, Shanghai, Chongqing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc.

June 2016The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved the construction of the country's first "National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Shanghai) Pilot Demonstration Zone", and the closed test area is operated in the Shanghai International Automobile City in Jiading.

The open test road is 53.6 kilometers long and covers an area of 65 square kilometers. It involves roads of different types and grades, with 1,580 test scenarios. 5G signals have achieved full coverage and high-precision maps have been collected.

Since then, since 2019,Cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Changsha, Wuhan, and Cangzhou, Hebei have successively issued more autonomous driving licenses and expanded the scope of autonomous driving road tests.

As of December 2019, Beijing has opened 503.68 kilometers of autonomous driving test roads in Haidian District, Shunyi District, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Fangshan District, with a safety testing mileage of more than 1 million kilometers, leading the country in test mileage.

Although the commercialization of autonomous driving still takes a long time, it is indeed coming to us step by step. As one netizen said, it is also great to experience it in advance.

Perhaps the next area open to autonomous driving test rides will be your city. Look forward to it.

Or, if you can’t wait, why not consider flying to Shanghai to experience it for yourself?

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