Baidu's Supercheap Robotaxis Should Scare the Hell Out of the US (theverge.com) 51
Baidu's new Apollo Go robotaxi brings significant advances in affordability and scalability that should make U.S. competitors like Waymo a bit nervous, according to The Verge's Andrew J. Hawkins. From the report: The RT6 is the sixth generation of Apollo Go's driverless vehicle, which made its official debut in May 2024. It's a purpose-built, Level 4 autonomous vehicle, meaning it's built without the need for a human driver. And here's the thing that should make US competitors nervous: adopting a battery-swapping solution, the price for one individual RT6 is "under $30,000," Baidu CEO Robin Li said in an earnings call. "All the strengths just mentioned above are driving us forward, paving the way to validate our business model," Li added. [...]
We still don't know the net effect of Baidu's cost improvements. But bringing down the upfront cost of each individual vehicle to below $30,000 will go a long way toward improving the company's unit economics, in which each vehicle brings in more money than it costs. There are still a lot of outstanding costs to consider, such as hardware depreciation and fleet maintenance, but from what Baidu is signaling, things are on the right track. From the looks of it, the company is passing those savings along to its customers. Base fares start as low as 4 yuan (around 55 cents), compared with 18 yuan (around $2.48) for a taxi driven by a human, according to state media outlet Global Times. Apollo Go said it has provided 988,000 rides across all of China in Q3 2024 -- a year-over-year growth of 20 percent. And cumulative public rides reached 8 million in October.
We still don't know the net effect of Baidu's cost improvements. But bringing down the upfront cost of each individual vehicle to below $30,000 will go a long way toward improving the company's unit economics, in which each vehicle brings in more money than it costs. There are still a lot of outstanding costs to consider, such as hardware depreciation and fleet maintenance, but from what Baidu is signaling, things are on the right track. From the looks of it, the company is passing those savings along to its customers. Base fares start as low as 4 yuan (around 55 cents), compared with 18 yuan (around $2.48) for a taxi driven by a human, according to state media outlet Global Times. Apollo Go said it has provided 988,000 rides across all of China in Q3 2024 -- a year-over-year growth of 20 percent. And cumulative public rides reached 8 million in October.
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If only Trump's America was a little more nuanced than "China bad. Won't somebody think of Tesla's profits?" ...voted for this.
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...and never forget TARIFFS!!!!!!
They may protect Tesla and give Musk an advantage in the US, but we should never forget that breaking down trade opens the opportunity for war
Re:I'm not terribly scared (Score:4, Insightful)
I would bet folding money that any tariffs applied in the next 4 years will not affect any of Ivanka's business.
Like last time.
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We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.
If Ukraine falls there will be war with China (Score:2)
I mean the world literally went to war because some random archduke got killed do you think access to semiconductors, one of if not the most important inventions in human history, won't trigger a war?
the China way of it being cheaper to kill someone (Score:1)
the China way of it being cheaper to kill someone vs injure them will not work that well in the usa.
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...these Chinese EVs don't meet the safety requirements for American roads. And if they rebuild them so that they do...
They'll change the safety requirements so they don't. It wouldn't be the first time.
The American car companies won't let them (Score:2)
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Little seems more terrifying (Score:2)
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Little seems more terrifying than being asked to ride in a "supercheap robotaxi".
I have: walking or riding bicycle, or having kids that do so, in an area that operates "supercheap robotaxi".
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"The Baidu robotaxi is capable of a level of autonomy where all human intervention is conducted remotely."
Okay that made me laugh. "Autonomy" now means "being controlled remotely by a human". Got it. lol
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It's not that cheap by Chinese standards, compared to other EVs that are driven manually. The price difference is more than enough to cover the cost of the sensors needed.
They may also be pushing them at minimal profit for now. It's a massive market that is just waiting for someone to develop a really good product, and from what people are saying (including western journalists who have tried it), it really is that good.
No so cheap after the Trump tariffs (Score:2)
Baidu's going to have to make them in the US for them to be economical.
Re: No so cheap after the Trump tariffs (Score:2)
Mexico is part of the U.S.? I think you need to go back to school. While you're there you can learn about NAFTA and how many "American" cars only qualify for that title if you mean "North America".
No safety requirements makes things a lot easier.. (Score:1)
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One of the guys hired to drive me in China told me that if you have a collision with a city bus you are deemed to be at fault regardless of circumstances. Even if the bus runs into you.
I didn't think to ask if "fault" here means financial liability, but if the EV robotaxi operator can get similar status to city busses (as a public service or whatever) then yes your legal exposure is vastly better than if you were working under the rules we have here.
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Things work differently in China, obviously. Government-run companies don't have to worry about private lawsuits when their robotaxis cause accidents and kill people. It's considered acceptable losses for the sake of market dominance.
Cue the Ford Pinto.
No, not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
American auto-firms could lower the prices of their vehicles but that would lower profits. Can't have that... If competition from China scares them, tough cookie.
Sadly, they will just petition the US government to "protect" them from competition. Instead of being innovative or offering more options people want, they double down on bigger, less efficient vehicles and in a lot of ways, feels like big auto just wants to add more and more premium features to the vehicles that I don't need and certainly don't want to be obligated to pay for.
Besides, is climate change real (I think it is)? If so, shouldn't we be embracing all the green tech we can manage and rolling that out to as many people in the world as we can?
But hey, our economy is more important then long term survival of humanity so fuck it, right?
Re:No, not really. (Score:4, Interesting)
Second - enough with the protectionism talk. CCCP has been propping up their domestic manufacturing for decades while limiting foreign investment and foreign firms from selling. They are also quick to spread FUD in their controlled media against many foreign countries to encourage their population to reject those brands. I do not have an issue with protectionist tariffs on Chinese imports.
Third - wouldn't light rail be even better than a bunch of battery powered taxis?
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Look in the mirror. The view from Europe is that you guys are doing pretty much everything you accuse them of these days.
It doesn't matter. They got there first, again. There are plenty of other places they can sell them to. We aren't going to get through this with tariffs, we need to get competitive.
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I'm not naive, I know the US is not always a great trade partner. My comment was specific to US-China trade.
Getting competitive means heavy subsidies in many cases.
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Why wouldn't there be demand for such a thing? Providing transportation with low labor cost sounds good for the consumers. Having a capital cost that is very incremental instead of one humungous monolithic cost (like rail) is also flexible and beneficial, because you can start realizing the benefits much sooner - although yes there are some inefficiencies due to having more vehicles. Individual vehicles is also much more robust to disruption than something that damages a section of track.
There's a lot to co
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Instead of being innovative or offering more options people want, they double down on bigger, less efficient vehicles
Actually it looks a lot like that is what people want.
"swing voters did not believe Harris when she said she had modified her previous stands: Large majorities said she really did want to ban fracking and require all U.S.-made cars to be electric by 2035, according to polling by the Democratic strategy group Blueprint. Of these skeptical swing voters, more than three-quarters voted for Trump."
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Sorry bout the paywall.
Sticker cost and real cost (Score:2, Insightful)
Most of the cost of an EV is the cost of the battery. If you are willing to accept a range of 90 miles or so you can make an EV really cheap.
It seems that Baidu made the calculation that the low-range of a cheap EV doesn't matter if a) it is operating in a limited area, and b) it can swap out the battery quickly at accessible stations. So the operation model is it that it will do 5 to a dozen or more rides depending on the trip length, zips into a change station, gets a new battery. Repeat.
Not a ba
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It also means you can have fewer battery safety features if your smaller, cheaper battery is less of a toxic chemical/electrical fire hazard than a full-sized battery. Then you get rid of some other safety features (by never incorporating them in the first place) aimed at passenger safety, and you can bring costs down even more.
Regardless, $30k per EV is still hella expensive compared to the $10k and less EVs on the Chinese market right now.
Mountains out of molehills (Score:2)
As someone who has worked on the technical side of a rollout of an Apollo platform on US roads, no, there's not a lot to be terrified about (yet, if at all).
While there are a lot of situations where Apollo is able to drive safely (mostly in situations of light-to-no traffic), it still struggles with:
- navigating tight spaces
- sensor fusion
- false positive collision avoidance ("sees" dust or water spray as a possible collision object)
- inclement weather in general
- requiring a HD map for navigating the world
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The capability for different sensor packages (lidar, radar, cameras, etc) to work in concert for better localization and object detection. The ability to perceive the world around a vehicle as a cohesive whole, instead of several different individual sensor domains that don't really "talk" to one another. In a perfect world, this would also provide a level of redundancy for a failed system, such as an obstructed sensor.
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You'd probably be surprised at how little of this is actually present on modern platforms (I know I was). Most platforms, regardless of how many types of sensors that a marketing team will say a vehicle has, lean heavily on one type of sensor. For Apollo, it's lidar. If the lidar unit(s) have problems, even if there are additional types of sensors in your suite (ours additionally had both multiple radars and cameras), the system either fully stops working, or working so badly that it becomes necessary for a
Why should the US be scared? (Score:1)
They will just enact protectionist measures, so there's no competition.
Re: Why should the US be scared? (Score:2)
The article is talking about "battery swapping" in regards to these taxis being their "killer feature" so they are BEVs. The U.S. won't need to adopt any protectionist tariffs, we already did.
Scare -- Delight (Score:2)
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Ok, now price out US safety requirements. (Score:2)
More Expensive Here (Score:2)
Are non-subsidized Chinese cars competitive? (Score:2)
Are non-subsidized Chinese cars competitive? That's the real question. Certainly labor costs are cheaper in China, but labor typically constitutes only a small part of the total costs, typically only around 7% for US car makers [cnn.com]. So, Chinese car prices are indeed lower, but the suspicion is that the Chinese government is subsidizing those cars and furthermore that prices are deflated for export. There's no practical way to estimate the true unsubsidized cost of Chinese cars and how much or whether Chines