Although the cloud of COVID-19 epidemic has not yet dispersed, there is a message of spring in the field of autonomous driving.
On February 26th (US time), California Motor Vehicle Administration released the 20 19 annual road test report for self-driving vehicles. Among the 36 companies that submitted the report, Waymo and? Cruise's test mileage adds up to 80% of the total mileage of all companies.
However, after taking over the data, MPI (miles? Per？ In the intervention ranking, Baidu surpassed Waymo's 132 19 miles/takeover with 18050 miles/takeover, becoming the first in the list.
Moreover, in the pre-receiving data 10, China companies accounted for half: Baidu (No.1) and Auto? X (No.4), Pony.ai (Xiaoma Zhixing, No.5), Didi (Didi, No.8) and Plus? Ai (Zhijia, No.9).
Although the California Motor Vehicle Authority said that the report could not be used to draw any conclusions about the technical capabilities of different autonomous driving companies, it was at least a performance dimension of autonomous driving technology, and China Autonomous Driving Company did quite well this time.
On February 26th, two domestic autonomous driving companies announced the latest financing progress.
Ma Xiao Zhixing officially announced that it would raise $400 million from Toyota. So far, the company has completed a series B financing with a total amount of 462 million US dollars, and its current valuation is slightly higher than 3 billion US dollars.
Shi Yu Science and Technology officially announced that it has obtained the strategic investment from Robert Bosch Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Bosch Group, in the round B financing.
Investment institutions are cancelled? And then what? Tarek Elsavi, the venture capital director of Play? Elessawi) once said: "The trend of self-driving cars of 20 16 and 20 17 is quite optimistic. Then 20 18, pragmatism began to prevail. By the end of 20 18, even industry leaders like Waymo admitted that they were not ready to put fully autonomous cars on the road. "
He judged that self-driving cars are now at the bottom of disillusionment.
But look at these two investors in autonomous driving, an international vehicle giant and an international Tier 1 manufacturer. If it is the "disillusionment trough" of autonomous driving, they all choose to overweight.
The giant's choice
Let's look at Toyota first.
Akio Toyoda once said on 20 17: "Toyota will accelerate its expansion in the field of driverless cars and electric vehicles." After that, on the one hand, Toyota devoted itself to the research and development of autonomous driving technology, on the other hand, it began to invest in lidar, an important part of autonomous driving, and started technical cooperation with companies such as NVIDIA, Microsoft and Uber.
2065438+In April 2008, Toyota invested in the autonomous driving department spun off by Uber. Previously, the company established an AI research subsidiary "TRI" in Silicon Valley in the United States to conduct research and development of autonomous driving. 2065438+In July 2009, Toyota and Denso announced that they would set up a joint venture company to develop semiconductor chips for the next generation of automobiles.
2065438+At the end of September, 2009, Ma Xiao Zhixing and Toyota launched pilot projects of open roads in Beijing and Shanghai respectively. This round B investment is an extension of the business cooperation relationship between the two parties, and it is also the first time that Toyota has invested in an autonomous driving startup in China.
Although different from GM and Ford, Toyota's investment in Ma Xiao Zhixing is not a simple financial investment, but a strategic investment. Under this year's strategic investment framework, in addition to developing autonomous driving technology, the two sides will also explore the possibility of more travel services.
At the CES International Consumer Electronics Show in 2020, Toyota released "Woven? The "Weaving City" plan indicates that it will establish a future travel demonstration city in Japan, and work with partners in various fields to verify the possibility of future travel, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and other fields, and shorten the development demonstration and development cycle.
Now, as an important partner of Toyota in the field of autonomous driving, Ma Xiao Zhixing may play its advantage in Robotaxi in this plan.
2065438+February 2008, Ma Xiao Zhixing released the PonyPilot Robotaxi project, which took the lead in opening roads for normal operation in pilot cities in Guangzhou and became the first company in China market to provide Robotaxi services.
On October 20 19, 1 1 year 10, Ma Xiao Zhixing took the lead in launching the first Robotaxi service for the general public in California, which laid the foundation for it to provide autonomous driving service on a global scale.
The relevant person in charge of Ma Xiao Zhixing told auto business review: "The goal of Ma Xiao Zhixing and Toyota is to realize real driverless technology in 2022."
Let's take a look at Bosch.
Ingo, managing partner of Bosch Venture Capital? Dr. Ramesohl said, "Shi Yu technology will further enrich Bosch Venture Capital's investment portfolio in the field of autonomous driving and bring more cooperation opportunities to Bosch."
Shi Yu Science and Technology first realized the automatic driving solution in certain scenes such as airports and factory parks. Its autopilot system includes sensor stack, controller and algorithm, tool chain and roadside unit independently developed by Shi Yu Science and Technology.
In June 5438 +2020 10, Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) announced that the Shi Yu Science and Technology Unmanned Logistics Vehicle had completed the trial operation and officially put into daily operation to serve the passenger baggage transportation.
Shi Yu Science and Technology's L4 autonomous driving technology has been commercialized, and Bosch is obviously interested.
In addition to this round of financing by Bosch and Shi Yu Science and Technology, top VC, PE and local strategic emerging industry funds such as Shenzhen Venture Capital (Shenzhen Innovation Investment Group), Admiralty Capital, Xiamen Seven Wolves Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Fund and Chongqing Liangjiang Service Fund are also participating.
Or the last one.
For Toyota and Bosch's two self-driving investments, Jia, managing director of Industrial Investment Co., Ltd., made this interpretation of auto business review: "Recently, Tesla is strong, traditional OEM and Tier 1 are under great pressure, and China's self-driving is constantly being laid out in large numbers."
Tang Rui, founder and CEO of Mu Zong Science and Technology, believes that at this stage, autonomous driving has obviously entered the second half. "Head enterprises can get investment, not the head will die within the year (or the first half of next year)", "only strategic investors can invest".
He judged that if there is no clear sustainable business development at this stage, it is likely that even if the investment is obtained, it will be the last one.
Auto business review believes that the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the automobile industry and economy is enormous, so both vehicle companies and investment institutions will be more cautious and rational in investing in the field of autonomous driving this year.
In this case, funds may be further concentrated in the head enterprises.
United market research company (Allied? Market? According to the global self-driving car report released by Research, the global self-driving car market in 20 19 is about 54 billion US dollars. It is estimated that by 2026, the compound annual growth rate of the global self-driving car market is expected to reach 39.47%.
Everything still looks promising, but we can't ignore another voice.
In late February, British media autocar reported that as one of the main supporters of the industry's long-term pursuit of fully automatic driving, Volvo is giving up this radical goal.
Volvo XC90, which will be launched in 2022, will be equipped with advanced software and hardware to realize the automatic driving function of liberating eyes or hands on highways where conditions permit. But the premise of this is that the expressway environment can be better controlled and predicted by technology.
However, Volvo made it clear that there will never be a system that means that the car can drive completely automatically in 100% of the time.
Perhaps, in the eyes of ambitious autonomous driving companies in China, Volvo's judgment is somewhat conservative, but it is also a useful reminder of the road ahead.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.