Chinese Robotaxis Have Government Black Boxes, Approach US Quality (forbes.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Robotaxi development is speeding at a fast pace in China, but we don't hear much about it in the USA, where the news focuses mostly on Waymo, with a bit about Zoox, Motional, May, trucking projects and other domestic players. China has 4 main players with robotaxi service, dominated by Baidu (the Chinese Google.) A recent session at last week's Ride AI conference in Los Angeles revealed some details about the different regulatory regime in China, and featured a report from a Chinese-American YouTuber who has taken on a mission to ride in the different vehicles.
Zion Maffeo, deputy general counsel for Pony.AI, provided some details on regulations in China. While Pony began with U.S. operations, its public operations are entirely in China, and it does only testing in the USA. Famously it was one of the few companies to get a California "no safety driver" test permit, but then lost it after a crash, and later regained it. Chinese authorities at many levels keep a close watch over Chinese robotaxi companies. They must get approval for all levels of operation which control where they can test and operate, and how much supervision is needed. Operation begins with testing with a safety driver behind the wheel (as almost everywhere in the world,) with eventual graduation to having the safety driver in the passenger seat but with an emergency stop. Then they move to having a supervisor in the back seat before they can test with nobody in the vehicle, usually limited to an area with simpler streets.
The big jump can then come to allow testing with nobody in the vehicle, but with full time monitoring by a remote employee who can stop the vehicle. From there they can graduate to taking passengers, and then expanding the service to more complex areas. Later they can go further, and not have full time remote monitoring, though there do need to be remote employees able to monitor and assist part time. Pony has a permit allowing it to have 3 vehicles per remote operator, and has one for 15 vehicles in process, but they declined comment on just how many vehicles they actually have per operator. Baidu also did not respond to queries on this. [...] In addition, Chinese jurisdictions require that the system in a car independently log any "interventions" by safety drivers in a sort of "black box" system. These reports are regularly given to regulators, though they are not made public. In California, companies must file an annual disengagement report, but they have considerable leeway on what they consider a disengagement so the numbers can't be readily compared. Chinese companies have no discretion on what is reported, and they may notify authorities of a specific objection if they wish to declare that an intervention logged in their black box should not be counted. On her first trip, YouTuber Sophia Tung found Baidu's 5th generation robotaxi to offer a poor experience in ride quality, wait time, and overall service. However, during a return trip she tried Baidu's 6th generation vehicle in Wuhan and rated it as the best among Chinese robotaxis, approaching the quality of Waymo.
Zion Maffeo, deputy general counsel for Pony.AI, provided some details on regulations in China. While Pony began with U.S. operations, its public operations are entirely in China, and it does only testing in the USA. Famously it was one of the few companies to get a California "no safety driver" test permit, but then lost it after a crash, and later regained it. Chinese authorities at many levels keep a close watch over Chinese robotaxi companies. They must get approval for all levels of operation which control where they can test and operate, and how much supervision is needed. Operation begins with testing with a safety driver behind the wheel (as almost everywhere in the world,) with eventual graduation to having the safety driver in the passenger seat but with an emergency stop. Then they move to having a supervisor in the back seat before they can test with nobody in the vehicle, usually limited to an area with simpler streets.
The big jump can then come to allow testing with nobody in the vehicle, but with full time monitoring by a remote employee who can stop the vehicle. From there they can graduate to taking passengers, and then expanding the service to more complex areas. Later they can go further, and not have full time remote monitoring, though there do need to be remote employees able to monitor and assist part time. Pony has a permit allowing it to have 3 vehicles per remote operator, and has one for 15 vehicles in process, but they declined comment on just how many vehicles they actually have per operator. Baidu also did not respond to queries on this. [...] In addition, Chinese jurisdictions require that the system in a car independently log any "interventions" by safety drivers in a sort of "black box" system. These reports are regularly given to regulators, though they are not made public. In California, companies must file an annual disengagement report, but they have considerable leeway on what they consider a disengagement so the numbers can't be readily compared. Chinese companies have no discretion on what is reported, and they may notify authorities of a specific objection if they wish to declare that an intervention logged in their black box should not be counted. On her first trip, YouTuber Sophia Tung found Baidu's 5th generation robotaxi to offer a poor experience in ride quality, wait time, and overall service. However, during a return trip she tried Baidu's 6th generation vehicle in Wuhan and rated it as the best among Chinese robotaxis, approaching the quality of Waymo.
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This honor will take place in one of our glorious Ghost Cities so no one may hear your screams.
Ah that old chestnut. Debunked years ago.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/w... [forbes.com]
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For an article like this, you want to see statistics. How many empty cities are there? How many were destroyed? How many filled up? You need numbers if you want a clear picture, and that article doesn't do it. It fails in its attempt to demonstrate anything for this reason,
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It has been long debunked, many times over. This is the classic example of a "subway to nowhere": https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnt... [reddit.com]
Now it looks more like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's just how China does things. They figure out where there are going to be a lot of people moving from rural areas to cities, and instead of waiting for it to become an over-crowded disaster with high property prices that the Invisible Hand of the Free Market fails to address, they build it all in advance. As well a
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Some pictures of a subway expansion that worked out are not formal evidence. They mean nothing in isolation. What's wanted is data, not a datum.
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FFS ignorant American, just read the linked article.
FFS fifty center, the links in the comment we're talking about don't go to articles with data in them.
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Re: Achtung, comrade! (Score:2)
I have no mod points, but that article just gave me vacation ideas
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China is a threat to the US, but not in the way most people think. China is a threat because it proves that all the crap said about socialism and the US model of democracy being the pinnacle isn't true.
If China can produce just as good, or even better self driving taxis, while under a nominally communist system, heavily regulated, that undermines all the arguments that billionaires and wannabes use to justify exploitation and gutting regulators.
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It's what the Orangeshirts will do in USA if one doesn't have full citizenship and not from a Donny-Approved country.
does the remote operator face hard time or if the (Score:1)
does the remote operator face hard time or if the car kills some one and they don't act in time?
Re:does the remote operator face hard time or if t (Score:4, Informative)
does the remote operator face hard time or if the car kills some one and they don't act in time?
Does any corporate in the US face hard time when their safety-cutting decisions directly cause the deaths of many? **cough** Boeing **cough**
Nope. Somehow the *company* instead is prosecuted and is allowed a guilty plea deal.
In contrast, remember the Chinese melamine milk scandal in 2008? Two received the death sentence, three received life sentences, one received 15 years, and another received 5.
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"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing...I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think." --Socrates. All of us are ignorant of something.
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You just read the article about Chinese cities no longer being ghost cities and yet remained ignorant.
It's clear you are biased and not a reliable judge of reality.
You're ignoring the examples just told to you and doubled down on your ignorance here too. Throwing your hands up and claiming it's too hard to know.
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You just read the article about Chinese cities no longer being ghost cities
Most of the cities mentioned in the article are not Chinese. Songdo is Korea. Read it.
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There's *some* justification, though. While positive news is probably correct, it's quite probable that a lot of negative news is suppressed. (That happens elsewhere too, but I think usually less thoroughly.)
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Re: does the remote operator face hard time or if (Score:2)
Re: does the remote operator face hard time or if (Score:2)
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Seems reasonable (Score:2)
1) Testing with a safety driver behind the wheel
2) Safety driver in the passenger seat but with an emergency stop.
3) Supervisor in the back seat
4) Test with nobody in the vehicle, usually limited to an area with simpler streets.
5) Testing with nobody in the vehicle, but with full time monitoring by a remote employee who can stop the vehicle.
6) Taking passengers, and then expanding the service to more complex areas.
7) No full time remote monitoring, though there do need to be remote employees able to monitor and assist part time.
Seems like a reasonable testing plan. The step between 4 and 5 seems a little blurry, but that might be translation.
There is no question this approach is better than what we have in California, which is basically "trust the tech companies even though we know they've lied."
Not everything is bad with the Chinese (Score:2)
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Oh, and Hitler only ever made the government b
Black boxes make sense... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having the black boxes is a good thing, as it will prevent the individual companies from trying to downplay or cover up any incident that might have happened.