How much is the minimum cost to build a driverless car without a steering wheel?
The answer is 250,000 yuan, RMB.
On the morning of July 21, Baidu released the sixth-generation mass-produced unmanned vehicle Apollo RT6 at the 2022 Baidu World Conference. This car is the first product of the Apollo Galaxy architecture platform and the first autonomous vehicle in China that meets mass production standards.
The most important thing is that the cost of the RT6 car has been reduced to 250,000 yuan, which is nearly half the cost of the previous generation unmanned vehicle Apollo Moon (480,000 yuan) and only one-tenth of the cost of the industry’s Robotaxi vehicle. one.
What is this concept?
Under normal circumstances, self-driving cars need to be equipped with a series of sensors such as lidar and high-precision GPS. This causes the cost of self-driving cars to easily exceed one million, and ordinary people cannot afford it.
Moreover, most of the Robotaxi vehicles currently on the market are modified based on mass-produced vehicles, such as Lexus RX, Weilai ES8, etc. The price of these basic models has exceeded 250,000. RT6 directly lowers the cost to the standard of ordinary family cars.
In July 2017, Robin Li took an unmanned car to attend the Baidu AI Developer Conference, but was ticketed by the traffic police on the Fifth Ring Road in Beijing.
Today, five years later, cheaper self-driving cars have begun to become a reality. Is the popularization of self-driving cars really coming?
01
The appearance is ordinary, and the interior is very "unmanned"
Unlike the previous five generations of models, RT6 was born on a new platform and a new concept of driverless cars. Whether it is appearance, interior, software or hardware, there is a completely new design.
In other words, RT6 is designed for mass production of driverless cars.
In order to cooperate with mass production, the appearance of RT6 is not too sci-fi. The overall body is similar to an SUV, with a body size of 4760*1870*1650mm and a wheelbase of 2830mm.
According to the official statement, this car has the size of an A-class car, the space of a B-class car, and the experience of a C-class car.
In order to facilitate passengers getting on and off the vehicle, RT6 is also designed with electric sliding doors.
In addition, the Galaxy waistline that highlights the sense of technology and security, and the keel sunroof that highly integrates the roof sensor and sunroof structure are all unique design elements of RT6.
Li Zhenyu, senior vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of the intelligent driving business group, said that this design is for aesthetics and to allow the unmanned vehicle to integrate into the existing traffic flow, so that people will not feel that it is an unmanned vehicle. car.
In fact, compared to the appearance, the internal space and layout are the highlights of RT6.
RT6 supports two modes: with and without steering wheels. The front row can be configured with seats, vending machines, desks, game consoles, etc. according to different travel scenarios to meet passengers' various needs for work, entertainment, etc.
This also means that once regulations permit, the RT6 without a steering wheel can be on the road at any time.
In terms of interior space design, RT6 has independent rear seats, flat floors, intelligent voice interaction in the car, etc. Thanks to the advantages of the pure electric platform, the rear space reaches 1050mm.
02
Is the driving ability equivalent to that of a veteran driver with 20 years of driving experience?
RT6 is built on the Galaxy platform, and Apollo owns the independent intellectual property rights of the Galaxy platform.
Unlike Volkswagen’s MEB platform and Geely’s SEA vast platform, the purpose of the Galaxy platform is to create unmanned vehicles. Therefore, at the beginning of the design, autonomous driving sensors, domain controllers, and redundancy were added.
In terms of specific configuration, RT6 has 38 external sensors, including 8 laser radars, 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, and 12 cameras. The computing unit has a computing power of 1200Tops.
RT6 has multiple fully redundant systems, 38 external sensors including 8 lidars, and 100% vehicle-standard safety. It has stronger L4 autonomous driving capabilities than the previous generation model.
In addition, RT6 has redundant designs for braking, steering, power supply, sensors, communication and other systems, as well as computing unit redundancy and architecture redundancy. If any single component or system fails, a backup All redundant systems can complete the replacement.
In terms of software, RT6 is equipped with a fault diagnosis and risk reduction system that integrates the vehicle's autonomous driving system.
According to Baidu, RT6 has achieved 100% car-grade and full vehicle redundancy system, which is two to three orders of magnitude more reliable than modified cars on the market.
Li Zhenyu said that the autonomous driving technology of RT6 is equivalent to that of a driver with 20 years of driving experience. It has stronger L4 autonomous driving capabilities than the previous generation model and can handle various complex roads and scenes in the city. .
03
Robotaxi is really not far away from becoming Didi
According to the plan, RT6 will be put into use on Radish Run in 2023.
Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said that the reduction in costs has allowed them to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles across the country. "Taking a ride on an autonomous car in the future will be half as expensive as taking a taxi now."
Taxi-hailing is cheaper, which means it has huge advantages in large-scale operations. Robotaxi, which has been stuck in a bottleneck, has finally seen the light of day.
Prior to this, Robotaxi’s business model did not convince many investors. First of all, Robotaxi needs to launch a large number of driverless cars, which are heavy assets. The larger the scale, the greater the operating expenses of the company.
Moreover, driverless cars need to be equipped with various sensor hardware, which increases the cost of car purchase.
Furthermore, the current Robotaxi is more like a bus and can only get on and off at fixed stops. This means that the route and working mode of Robotaxi are relatively rigid and far less flexible than human online car-hailing operations.
In addition, the Robotaxi industry is currently in a fragmented situation, with various business models emerging one after another, and major traffic platforms are also connected to Robotaxi's taxi traffic portal.
All of these have restricted the development of Robotaxi.
However, since this year, Robotaxi has begun to show signs of success.
In April, Pony.ai obtained the country’s first taxi operating license belonging to an autonomous driving company, and invested 100 autonomous vehicles in Nansha, Guangzhou to activate the charging mode. At almost the same time, Beijing also issued the first batch of road test notices for unmanned demonstration applications to Baidu and other companies, opening the door for the commercialization of unmanned driving.
In June, the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Intelligent Connected Vehicle Management Regulations" were voted and approved by the 10th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Seventh Municipal People's Congress, and it will be implemented from August 1. These legal provisions provide a legal basis for the production, manufacturing and on-road operation of Robotaxi.
More and more people are beginning to realize that Robotaxi is not an illusory PPT story. The seemingly unattainable dream of unmanned taxis is gradually becoming a reality.
What’s interesting is that RT6 is not only for the Robotaxi industry, ordinary consumers can also buy this mass-produced vehicle with L4 level capabilities.
This means that in some areas stipulated by law, ordinary consumers can drive this car at any time, play games on the road, sing songs, and like a taxi, let the vehicle run out and make money on its own. support a family.
How are you doing? Are you excited?
This article comes from Super Electric Laboratory