Driverless ‘RoboTaxis’ hit Beijing streets

CGTN Europe

‘RoboTaxis’ are now on the rise in some parts of Beijing, with no human drivers.   It’s part of a plan to create so-called ‘smart cities’ and modernize China’s urban areas.   CGTN’s Zheng Chunying takes a look.

Transcript

00:00A taxi without a driver at the wheel. Yes, it's possible. Baidu's Apollo Go is a Chinese

00:08autonomous ride-sharing service launched in 2017 in the suburban Beijing city district

00:13of Yijuan, or E-Town. Now, these driverless cabs are making advances on road to commercial

00:19operation. And today, I'd like to give it a try. So now all I have to do is to enter

00:25the last four digits of my registered phone number. And then the door will automatically

00:33open. See, no one is inside except for us. So now let's fasten our seatbelts and press

00:42the button. Wow, it's moving. Wow. On the road, the robot taxi made turns, changed lanes

00:57to overtake another car, and negotiated its way around the streets. And there's a button

01:04that can be used to call for help in case of an emergency. And now, Beijing has allowed

01:10many robot taxis, including Apollo Go, to offer such driverless vehicle services at

01:14Beijing Daxing International Airport. Wow, here we arrived safely. It takes us about

01:22ten minutes for five kilometers, just as a regular taxi. From sanitation to security

01:28patrol vehicles, buses to delivery cars, self-driving vehicles are becoming part of residents'

01:35everyday lives. And all of this is inseparable from China's determination to deepen reforms

01:41while achieving greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology. Over the

01:46past few years, China has made significant investments in technology, seen in the rising

01:51numbers of high-tech talents, contracts, and patents in the field. In 2023, there were

01:57950,000 technology contracts signed, with the transaction volume reaching more than

02:036 trillion yuan, marking a more than 28 percent increase year on year. The number

02:08of authorized investment patents reached more than 920,000, a rise of over 15 percent year

02:15on year. Well, China has an extreme level of innovation. Chinese growth in the future

02:22will be driven by technology and innovation. That's the only solution. And that's how China

02:28will really escape the middle-income trap, you know, and become a developed nation with

02:34a high level of GDP per capita. Looking ahead, the Chinese government has pledged to allocate

02:40370 billion yuan for science and technology in 2024 as part of its efforts to advance

02:47innovation. And Beijing's E-Town is ready to follow the task. We'll implement more application

02:53scenarios for vehicle-road collaborative autonomous driving. We'll also accelerate

02:58the research and development of core technologies, gather more talents for scientific research,

03:04and achieve more scientific research results. It's hoped the move will not only create more

03:09market potential that benefits Chinese tech companies such as Baidu's Apolgo, but also

03:15drive the country's economic growth and better serve people's lives.

03:19Cheng Xuying, CGTN, Beijing.

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