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China Transportation Technology

Baidu's Jidu Auto To Mass Produce Its 'Robot' Electric Vehicles in 2023 (reuters.com) 43

Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li said Jidu Auto would start mass production of its first "robot" electric vehicles (EV) in 2023. From a report: Jidu, an electric vehicle venture between China's tech giant Baidu and Chinese automaker Geely, would make EVs that are of the autonomous Level-four, which needs no human intervention, Li said at Baidu's annual developers' conference on Monday.
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Baidu's Jidu Auto To Mass Produce Its 'Robot' Electric Vehicles in 2023

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  • And watch as chaos ensues.
    • by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @11:10AM (#62119295)
      Why would a car without a driver need windows on it? Windows would only scare the passengers; better omit them completely.
      • Why would a car without a driver need windows on it? Windows would only scare the passengers; better omit them completely.

        Or a car radio, or speedometer. Not sure about a steering wheel, though it likely will have a steering wheel, to help in the event of a "breakdown".

    • Why would a Chinese corporation install Windows on anything at all?

      • Why would a Chinese corporation install Windows on anything at all?

        Because in China intellectual property rights aren't enforced like they are in the rest of the world. Nobody pays license fees in China, they just copy all the code developed outside of China and claim it as their own, and use it as they please.

        • There is no such thing as "intellectual property", sorry.

        • Because in China intellectual property rights aren't enforced like they are in the rest of the world.
          That is nonsense.
          But like in the rest of the world: the owner of the intellectual property has to sue. As it is not a crime, but a civil case.

          Nobody pays license fees in China, they just copy all the code developed outside of China and claim it as their own, and use it as they please.
          Any link for that which is not written buy your right wing nuts friends?

          • Actually, there are quite a few "developed" countries, where large hoarders of copyright and related rights monopolies have managed to transfer enforcement responsibility to the state - that is, privatized the profits and socialized the costs.

            Of course, this is the minor problem, the conversion of the notion of time-limited monopoly on an idea to award the inventor into a perpetual monopoly to award the lawyer-lobbyist is where the drama is.

  • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @11:33AM (#62119361)

    With perhaps the exception of Tesla, the US Automakers (As well as most of the other countries established Automakers. ) are severely getting behind the times of what a modern Automobile is. Most of them are just starting to make an Electric Drivetrain on top of their ICE designed cars, while Chinese companies are coming out of the woodwork with cars designed to be EV and Autonomous from the start.
    Here is the kicker, these Chinese brand cars are not Cheap Crap, they are actually well designed cars, which will probably become popular in the United States, with perhaps under an Americanized Brand name, so people don't realize they are buying a Chinese Car.

    In the States Tesla is leading with 4 all BEV models S,X,3 and Y. While GM only has the Volt (which is under massive recalls, because when they made it, it was suppose to be a compliance car), Ford has the Mustang Mach-E. While there are some future releases, a Few Trucks and heavy SUV, and Luxury cars which are all expensive and out of the reach of the every day driver. China is making affordable and high quality cars, that are Environmentally Clean, Fun to drive, safe, and practical.

    Right now the traditional automakers are putting more money into FUD against Electric cars, by Exaggerating their weaknesses, (Oh NO YOU HAVE TO CHARGE for longer when you do your twice a year roadtrip!, who cars that you don't need to stop and fill up every week at your gas station, because you can charge from home every night) Everytime an EV gets in an accident or catches on Fire lets make that headline news, despite it is more common for these traditional cars to catch on fire, and get in an accident. FUD only works for a small amount of time, as people begin to switch to EVs, and their friends see how the FUD was untrue, will only make adoption continue, with the Automakers not having spent enough time to catch up.

    • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @12:12PM (#62119499) Homepage Journal

      With perhaps the exception of Tesla, the US Automakers (As well as most of the other countries established Automakers. ) are severely getting behind the times of what a modern Automobile is. [...]

      It's not even clear that US automakers, or *any* automakers, will ever be able to compete with Tesla.

      In his book "The Innovator's Dilemma [wikipedia.org]", Clayton Christensen points out that companies find it largely impossible to switch to new technologies. He cites numerous examples in disk drive technology of the past few decades, where anyone making disk drives needed to switch to the newer technology, a dozen or so of which transformed the industry, or be left behind. Only 1 company managed to do it 1 time, and the CEO pointed out that the switch took up virtually his entire time during the transition.

      (As opposed to companies who start a new company to make and sell the new technology, then when it starts to take off they replace current management with the management of the new company - that seems to work.)

      That the transition is hard is easy to explain: managers compete for resources, some managers point out (rightly so) that they still have to support existing products, that there is still a loyal fan base for the existing products, and so on. Engineers are used to the internal design process, innovation is painfully slow, the knowledge base is tuned to the older technology (do EEs at Ford have the chops to design an EV battery?), and so on.

      Looking at automakers, we see many claiming to sell electric vehicles "in the near future", but are having a hard time putting it into practice. Check out the Mach-E versus Tesla comparison [youtube.com] of thermal systems. Tesla has innovated the thermal system into a small self-contained "brick" using 3 meters of hose, while the Mach-E has something like 15 meters of hose and connectors snaking around everywhere (IIRC - exact numbers might be different).

      Under those conditions, The Ford system is more expensive to build and far more prone to failure and manufacturing defects (more hoses and connections to fail). Tesla has them beat, and I don't expect Ford to change their design or process to compensate.

      Also of note, Tesla has been patenting its innovations such as their battery designs, which severely limits the innovation landscape... unless the newcomer wants to license the technology from Tesla.

      People who have examined the Tesla onboard computer system have noted that Tesla is 6 years ahead of the competition on that aspect alone. Custom chips and software will be hard to reproduce if you're working from scratch.

      Overall, I don't see US automakers, or *any* automakers, really catching up with Tesla any time before the next 5 years or so, and the most likely scenario is that those automakers will simply go out of business. Rivian and others are too late to the table, and won't be able to ramp up production before Tesla has the lion's share of the market.

      If anyone has a reasonable scenario where some *other* automaker captures any significant portion of the market, please let us know.

      Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend holding on to stock from any conventional automaker.

      • Tesla has the first mover advantage. However, they only Make 4 models, 2 Sedans and 2 SUVs. While there is a Pickup Truck, Semi-Truck and a 2 door Sport Car down the road expected in a year or two. It really doesn't cover what all Americans want or need in a car.
        We still need a sub 20k car, for the masses, Vans, Mini-Vans, Box Trucks, and with a bunch of styles. Not everyone likes minimalism. Some people don't care of the 0-60 under 6 seconds, but want a smooth ride. Then in the US Telsa still use its o

        • =We still need a sub 20k car, for the masses

          In order to reach that price point, you'd need batteries that are cheap enough to have satiated all the other use cases (off-grid PV, load balancing, backup power, etc.) first. Unlike an ICE powertrain, batteries have many uses beyond just powering vehicles.

          EVs are going to be expensive for the foreseeable future. The demographic that presently buys "sub 20k car(s)" will just have to consider buying used (and caveat emptor on that whole expensive replacement battery thing, once the warranty expires).

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @04:34PM (#62120267) Homepage Journal

          MobileEye got started before Tesla. Originally they were using MobileEye tech for gen 1, then started over with their own system.

          MobileEye is still ahead of them, e.g. they have hands free level 2, and level 3 in some of the latest cars.

          The leaders are Waymo/Google, who have level 4.

          The Chinese are at level 4 too, and from what has been shown it really seems to work.

      • Also of note, Tesla has been patenting its innovations such as their battery designs, which severely limits the innovation landscape... unless the newcomer wants to license the technology from Tesla.

        Tesla's Patent Pledge [tesla.com] would allow other automakers to use their patents free of charge, provided they're acting in good faith.

        The rest of your points are spot-on.

    • While you points all seem valid. Basically everything you said should be accompanied by an explanation of reason (though not to invalidate it's utility).

      These companies are getting behind but the innovation model in the US is often about great leaps with the classic phrase being "China doesn't innovate". China is just getting to space with it's space station and rovers (these are nonetheless great steps of progress in a domain that has been rather hostile), while Musk wants a colony on Mars within a few dec

      • Is it "China doesn't innovate", or "China use to not innovate".

        Also American Innovation is being replaced with American Protectionism, which is the antithesis of innovation

        • It's becoming "China is slow to innovate" because market innovation requires market demand. They are becoming innovative but when we examine most the things they do at scale the innovation is small or non-existent. Consider the Chinese vaccines. They use inactivated virus where as the western states are using RNA and the new US military one is self-assembling proteins. We can even look at industries where there is a desire to model China, such as Amazon Logistics looking at last mile delivery in China. Last

    • (Oh NO YOU HAVE TO CHARGE for longer when you do your twice a year roadtrip!, who cars that you don't need to stop and fill up every week at your gas station, because you can charge from home every night)

      Mocking your potential future customers for their buying decisions is not a good strategy for building a new base of customers. A better idea is to make a case for your product being superior. Another idea is to use the "Pepsi plan". That is brand yourself as the "choice of the next generation", then wait as your competition's base dies off and your customer base has children and passes their product purchasing preferences on to their children.

      Because people buy cars for 100% of their driving, not 99% of

  • by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Monday December 27, 2021 @12:17PM (#62119511)

    We'll be seeing millions of robotaxis in the streets by 2023. The streets of China, and made by Baidu, but still... A visionary, that man!

  • Imagine being chased by an army of self driving, armed vehicles. Be happy life is finite.
  • Because Elon Musk's name is not anywhere near this article, the snide comments about technological and ethical feasibility will be about 1% as voluminous as they would otherwise be. Just sayin.

  • Man, I misread that title when I skimmed. Clicked for the entertainment . . .

    Seriously, if this was about . . . that guy that they're currently picking on so much (we do take turns) . . . the internet would metaphorically jack-knife taking all of the attention junkies, tailgaters and ambulance chasers out at once. The resulting attempt to course-correct, but stay on it's current downward spiral might actually result in a Douglas-Adams-esque "poof"

    "My God, it's full of stars"
  • I saw this link while reading the fine article: https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]

    It turns out that if the electricity used to charge up an EV is from coal then the CO2 emissions would be higher than if the car burned gasoline. Nations with the lowest CO2 emissions for charging an EV will have ample supplies of hydro and nuclear power. Nations that use wind and solar for producing a large portion of their electricity tend to burn coal at night, when the winds are calm, the sun has set, and EVs are most oft

    • The important thing is are they fashionable and are they selling well. "Eco-friendliness" was never a big feature, if you want eco-friendly, you go for bicycles and public transportation, not for cars.

  • But: This is not fully autonomous. It requires geofencing and may require lower speeds and cars still will occasionally run into a situation where they need driver assistance to proceed. Cars will typically not cause accidents and if they do, damage will be low. It will be interesting to see how well this works overall.

  • Cannot wait to buy my incredibly safe fully-autonomous Baidu vehicle on Wish.com for just $20!

The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project

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