China's Robotaxis Hit the Road | Hacker News Reader

China's Robotaxis Hit the Road

eetimes.com

52 pointsgiuliomagnifico44 comments

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Interesting topic, but this is a low quality article without any sources or links for further reading.

The author did not even bother to embed video clips of the robotaxis(?) navigating thru Shanghai or Guangzhou traffic.

What I found does not look very impressive - if compared to Tesla or Waymo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkI68JuhvUw

Does anyone have better videos?

Driver engages : https://youtu.be/AkI68JuhvUw?t=172

Nice catch!

There were fully driverless busses around 5 years ago near the Western Digital campus in Shenzhen.

They drove on fully segregated roads, and traffic was centrally controlled.

Yeah, this one is impressive to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swwdaKotXT8

It's remarkable how little press these get in the West. One question not addressed in the article though: what does the safety record look like?

I imagine they'll be programmed to run over a pedestrian twice if they hit one.

'Driven to Kill - Why drivers in China intentionally kill the pedestrians they hit.'

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/why-drivers-in-c...

I wonder how true that article is

Considering how many outlets have covered this phenomenon and the dearth of videos of it you can find in the dark parts of the internet I'd say it's completely true. Downvoting doesn't make it false either.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-ed...

“ Most people agree that the hit-to-kill phenomenon stems at least in part from perverse laws on victim compensation. In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small—amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000—and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical. Indeed, Zhao Xiao Cheng—the man caught on a security camera video driving over a grandmother five times—ended up paying only about $70,000 in compensation.”

Interesting to see economics play a life and death role. It’s analogous to the millions of forced gender selective abortions in China due to the experienced lower economic value of girls and the 1-child policy.

This doesn't have anything to do with 'the west'. Cruise doesn't get any mainstream media coverage either, and neither do Waymo or Mobileye.

The only one frequently shown is Tesla's self driving because of the brand being used as buzzword.

I'm not talking about mainstream media, but industry sites like HN. Waymo, Tesla, Otto, Cruise, Comma.ai etc feature(d) here regularly, but I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese self-driving car on the front page before.

chinese topics are not popularity here as they often are encountered with a certain negative bias and a modern form of the Godwin's law where every discussion ends on how bad the party is (but ofc not the poor oppressed people, just they party with 100 mio members, a 90pc approval rating), how mean the chinese detention centers in xinjiang are and how mean china is bullying taiwan.

even just the pointing out of that leads to abysmal post ratings, like this post (that will receive negative ratings).

the good stuff about china (and there is so so so much amazing and great stuff happening there, ALSO on gov and party level) is being ignored or only receives very little attention.

i think that many people just dont want to be voted negative and self censor them, which i have done also often.

Chinese topics are not popular because us foreigners cant usually participate in them at all.

If China ever reopens for foreigners you will see more positive attitude towards China.

There is a lot of people that want to like China but China actively works on getting rid of any foreign influence from its country.

I mean there is a lot of people who think of China as this cool place where they would want to live and work without caring too much about its issues in Xinjiang or with Taiwan.

Because guess what. A lot of people just want to love their chinese partners, raise children or simply enjoy working in high tech Shenzhen.

I think it’s also the case that current China is actively working on moderating every bit of information that comes out of China so if you’re not living there it’s unrealistic to expect one to have any opinion based on facts. But it seems like now you can’t safely live there. So there’s no way to build your own opinion.

there are so many blogs out there that even translate the memes going on in chinese media.

although the party is censoring political stuff, there is so much more that goes on and that is not redacted or censored.

to me it is just pure ignorance that people do not search for that stuff actively.

over 9000 "OMG JAPANESE RYOKAN" views on videos and ig posts, but 14 views with Chinese stuff.

That's because China actively works on trying to not look cool. People used to like China's progress (big cities, infrastructure, the cool vibe of China) but the CCP has decided that they just want to look threatening and menacing instead of cool and welcoming.

I mean you get all these propaganda raps where it's so unnatural and repulsive.

There's few examples of content out of China that is not political and people seem to like it (Li Ziqi's videos).

you understand that there are over 1.4 bn people? I bet there will be one or two who will look cool.

It is NOT ONLY JUST politics.

obviously you have no idea what this country actually has to offer.

again, i am tired to talk on this pro-west-only board.

You dont seem to understand what I am talking about. Li Ziqi is also CCP sponsored propaganda but it's actually propaganda that PEOPLE LIKE.

That's what I am talking about.

Western people dont respond well to threats.Western people will not be in awe because China does something grandiose or menacing.

This pro-west-only board is like this because we are all WESTERN and can participate in the WESTERN world.And this applies to anyone that decides to including chinese people.

Maybe, I think it is more likely due to the huge presence of free advertising in the form of YouTubers driving around in their FSD betas.

Interesting except from the article:

"Baidu maintains two strategies for its AV activities: Apollo open source AV software platform and its own AV products based on Apollo software technology. The internet giant has already built an impressive Apollo open source ecosystem, with more than 200 companies participating."

Which indeed [1] is Apache licensed.

[1] https://github.com/ApolloAuto

Wow billions and billions invested in multiple companies with different strategies. Goes to show that if driverless tech is solved and we have a winner take all scenario that we usually see in tech, a car company letter may have to be added amongst the FAANG acronym.

Sometimes I have to think about the Wright brothers. In most today's societies there is no way to be like those brothers. Everything is so heavy regulated to avoid risk that no risk can be taken.

Maybe this is why China will succeed to be the first to have level 5 self driving.

I think Tesla will get there first purely because Elon Musk is smart and ballsy enough to just go ahead and do it though it may not be entirely safe. It is what it takes to get innovation through this system. I’m personally blown away by the difference between FSD v8 and the current v10.2

Tesla's level 2 FSD is still behind companies that are already at level 4.

Which companies? Only one I know of is Waymo.

Mobileye for example. I believe this is an Intel company.

And it was a Tesla supplier.

Where can I order my level 4 mobile eye car?

This is not the point.

But you can order any modern car, place the sensors and let Mobileye control the car.

Udelv Ink is planning to implement it in 36000 delivery vehicles.

You can also buy a level 4 shuttle from Navya if you like.

Some people downvote my comment and I assume this is because they don't think Tesla is at level 2. But Tesla's own legal department stated this about FSD beta.

The Wright brothers only endangered themselves.

Autonomous vehicles endanger everybody around them. If electric, those vehicles weigh well over 2 tonnes and have the potential to kill people even inside other vehicles.

"Some of you may die but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make" is not a good motto.

We don’t allow people to hurt themselves. Sometimes it is only through violation of these ethical norms that we get progress: cardiac catheterization is the classic example.

> We don’t allow people to hurt themselves.

Of course we do. You can go to a grocery store and buy plenty sugary drinks to kill yourself slowly.

Or you can buy a car and drive full speed into a wall.

Or you can join a fitness cult and excercise so much you die from it.

Or to stay at topic you can build your own airplane. The unnoficial motto of the faa experimental regulations is that everyone is entitled to pick their own funeral. The regulations are not designed to keep you safe, but to keep others safe.

Hmm, this is a fair point. We allow people to hurt themselves in certain ways. There is most definitely some threshold above which we make it illegal but I can’t tell what the threshold is. It’s not “risk of death” because BASE jumping would be outlawed then.

But it’s clear we do this “for your own good” falsely often.

But China is a country that is different. I can imagine they take some accidents for granted when they can be the number one in the world. Because that will be good for the whole country.

They literally let a satellite crash to earth without knowing where it will land, worldwide.

So yeah, their risk tolerance is probably higher :)

Skylab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab fell to the earth without precise knowledge of where it would land.

Yeah, in 1973. The US and the west is unrecognisable now in terms of risk tolerance IMO.

You might want to actually read some of the regulations that need to be complied with to run a self-driving trial in Beijing http://www.beijing.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengcefagui/202102/W02021... before jumping to the conclusion that an absence of regulation will lead to faster technological progress.

Arguably, the private space sector is modern equivalent of the Wright brothers. The regulations do not seem to be as onerous as to prevent founding of new companies such as RocketLab or Astra.

exactly. corporate capitalism killed innovation; the poisons are liability, intellectual property, and monopolization in tech that uses the first two in the starting lanes to stop competition, and buyouts if competition makes it to the finish lane.

Note:

>> The vast majority of robotaxi operations use safety drivers. Driverless robotaxis trials have emerged in the last year and will grow. Driverless robotaxis have teleoperation-based remote operation as a backup for a safety driver.

In terms of your analogy that's as if the Wright brothers only "flew" in the sense that Orvil carried Wilbur on his back while Wilbur flapped his arms and yelled "I'm flying!".

Western efforts aren't any better. It's not regulation that's keeping anything back. It's the lack of a clear path towards convincing "autonomous" technology.

Huh? Does this change your mind? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fqofZWMJpk

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