Waymo's "Crazy Road"

Waymo has touched the sensitive nerves in the field of autonomous driving again and again.

Recently, Waymo officially announced the establishment of a factory to produce L4-class driverless cars. Previously, Waymo One, a commercial self-driving taxi service project, began to run in Phoenix. Passengers can call the vehicle through the APP and pay the fee, and they can go anywhere within the area of 80~ 100 square mile.

Undoubtedly, Waymo is vigorously promoting driverless driving into the era of mass production and commercialization. At the same time, it is a large-scale reshuffle that is happening and will continue to happen in the field of autonomous driving.

First, let's start with this new factory.

Although there have been some reports, Waymo's new factory still has many details worth chewing.

1. The new factory will be set up in the southeast of Michigan, covering an area of 200,000 square feet (about 1858 1 square meter) and will be put into production before the end of 20021.

2. The new factory was approved by Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). MEDC will provide Waymo with a subsidy of US$ 8 million, and the total investment of the factory is estimated to be US$ 654.38+US$ 03.6 million. In the early stage, 654.38+000 operators were recruited, and 400 jobs will be added by 2025.

3. The new factory is not a traditional manufacturing factory, but a transformation factory, which is used to transform 62,000 Fiat-Chrysler Pacifica hybrid cars and 20,000 Jaguar Land Rover i-Pace pure electric cars previously purchased by Waymo.

4.Waymo also revealed that the new factory will operate together with Magna, and the specific cooperation details have not been disclosed. Magna is the world's top supplier of parts and components, and an all-round king with rich experience in building cars. When Waymo was independent from Google, its CEO made it clear that the company would not enter the field of car building, so why did it choose to cooperate with Magna instead of Fiat or Jaguar Land Rover, the first party of the vehicle?

After analyzing these details, we can further interpret:

First, from the current point of view, the mass production steps defined by Waymo are: Fiat or Jaguar Land Rover -Waym- Magna -L4 class driverless cars, and the role played by Fiat or Jaguar Land Rover in this is likely to be a foundry;

Second, Waymo attaches great importance to its core competitiveness, and core hardware such as millimeter-wave radar, lidar and central computing platform cannot be pre-installed in the prototype provided by the automobile factory;

Third, Waymo's move is to keep its intellectual property secrets to the greatest extent, and it is almost impossible for an automobile manufacturer to access its core technology. Similarly, Magna will play the role of consultant or trainer, and the actual loading will be operated by the Waymo team.

Fourthly, the new factory is located in Michigan because Michigan is the starting point of the automobile industry, and Michigan has advanced automobile high-tech technology and mature manufacturing system.

Waymo said in his official blog, "The Great Lakes region not only has rich human resources, but also has perfect snow conditions for us to test. Waymo's local engineers are working hard to adjust the vehicles, and we look forward to further expanding Waymo. " From the beginning of the project to a safe and convenient "driverless" project, to the accumulation of test mileage, and then to the start of the commercialization project of driverless taxis, Waymo spent ten years making driverless cars closer to the homes of ordinary people.

Waymo's "Crazy Road"

In 2009, Google X Lab started the autonomous driving project. You know, Uber was just established that year, and Baidu's tentacle autopilot field has been four years later.

At that time, Google had been developing unmanned vehicles without steering wheel and pedals. After years of testing, it decided to change its thinking: stop independently developing the technical route of automobile hardware and focus only on the core technology of autonomous driving.

Thus, Waymo was born. On 20 16 12 14, Google announced that it would spin off the self-driving car business from X Lab and set up an independent company, Waymo, which means that Google will take the self-driving car business as a long-term sustainable operation project, and the commercialization progress is put on the agenda, which also means that Google is full of confidence in its self-driving technology.

Next, Waymo, as an independent company, is "arrogant" on the road of accumulating test mileage of unmanned vehicles and buying fleets crazily. Waymo has indeed made great achievements close to commercialization.

In terms of test mileage, Waymo announced at the end of July last year that the road test mileage of its self-driving team on public roads has reached 8 million miles, with an average of 25,000 miles per day, and the simulation system has simulated more than 5 billion miles. In fact, since the large-scale formation of the fleet, Waymo's test mileage has increased almost exponentially, which means that Google will get more test data in less time, which is conducive to the continuous commercialization process.

According to the latest official data, the total test mileage of Waymo in 25 cities in Arizona, California, Texas and Washington State has exceeded 65.438+0 billion miles (about 65.438+0.6 million kilometers), and it also has 65.438+0 billion miles of virtual test mileage. Therefore, Waymo is far ahead in the actual test mileage of the L4 driverless system.

In terms of business exploration, Waymo's path is becoming clearer and clearer: through the promotion of driverless cars, we can enjoy the automobile industry and bid farewell to the driver era. Waymo has been trying unmanned passenger testing service in recent years, and launched unmanned taxi payment service last year.

2065438+In April 2007, Waymo announced that it would test self-driving cars in Phoenix. This test is different from the past, and hundreds of families participated in it this time. Waymo is equipped with a tester on each prototype, one is to prevent accidents, and the other is to get passengers' ride experience. This is the first public test for the public, paving the way for Waymo to launch Waymo One, a paid driverless taxi service.

In 20 18, Google did not set security officers in some vehicles for the first time in Arizona's early rider project, and early passengers began to really ride completely driverless cars. For safety reasons, emergency stop and communication buttons are reserved at the top of the middle seat, which is convenient for passengers to act as safety officers themselves.

On 20 18 12.5, Waymo officially launched the paid driverless taxi service-way mo one in the United States, which added another milestone to the commercialization process of self-driving cars and waymo began to make money. It is reported that the operation mode of Waymo One is similar to that of domestic drip taxis. The user calls the car online through the APP, and there is still a security officer in the car.

However, Waymo One is still open to minorities, serving hundreds of people only in the early early rider project, and only operating in four areas in the suburbs of Phoenix, with a total area of about 258 square kilometers.

Although only a few people have experienced the Waymone service, we still feel more and more that the era of driverless cars is not a joke.

The successful landing of a series of commercial projects has also caused Waymo's valuation to soar. As early as 20 17, Morgan Stanley valued Waymo at at least $70 billion, which also made it surpass GM's $50.4 billion valuation, Tesla's $49.8 billion valuation and Ford's $44.9 billion valuation.

Last year, Waymo's valuation further rose sharply. Brian Nowak, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, told customers that considering the potential impact of the driverless company Waymo on the transportation, retail and real estate trust and investment fund (REIT) industries, the valuation of Waymo may rise from $75 billion to $654.38+075 billion.

UBS Group AG also predicted in May last year that by 2030, Waymo will occupy 60% of the global driverless car industry, with revenue as high as114 billion dollars and valuation as high as $75 billion to13.5 billion dollars.

Waymo's competitor

Undoubtedly, in the process of exploring the commercialization of driverless driving, Waymo rode the dust. However, in the context of a long time to complete full commercialization, other players still have opportunities. The autonomous driving industry is still in the arms race stage, and it will experience hundreds of battles, and the last few will compete with each other.

It is predicted that in 2025, the auto-driving related industries will generate an output value of 1.9 trillion US dollars. Therefore, the prospect of autonomous driving technology is considerable, and the road ahead of us is not bright enough. Anyone can break the game, but Waymo is ahead of everyone, and there is still a long way to go. Waymo needs to always be alert to the players who are running on the road together.

At present, Waymo's competitors include General Cruises, Uber, Tesla, and China's Baidu Apollo. Huawei, a giant in the field of communications, is also an opponent that cannot be ignored.

I believe that the news that Waymo built a factory to produce L4-class self-driving cars on a large scale will not have a small shock to other players. After the fatal crash last year, the autonomous driving industry was silent for a long time. Many people are not optimistic about the future of autonomous driving and think that it is just a "decoration". However, after Uber restarted the test project and Waymo's series of commercialization actions at the end of last year, the commercialization process of autonomous driving was put on the agenda again, and the arms race between players began again. Among them, Waymo's most direct competitor should be Cruise.

Cruise, an autonomous driving company from Silicon Valley, became a strong rival of Waymo after General Motors entered the company. In 20 16, GM acquired this team of only 40 people for 10 billion dollars, which made people appreciate the madness of the autonomous driving industry for the first time. In 20 18, Cruise was basically in the rush mode, at least in the capital market. It has successively obtained investment of $2.25 billion from Softbank Vision Fund and $2.75 billion from Honda, and its valuation once reached146 billion.

The advantage of Cruise over Waymo is that it has the endorsement of GM, so it can focus all its energy on the research and development of autonomous driving technology, regardless of mass production. In June+10 last year, they released Cruise AV, a self-driving car without steering wheel and brake pedal, and planned to mass-produce and put it into commercial operation in 20 19.

Cruise's commercialization path is basically the same as Waymo's, and it also hopes to launch an autopilot car service. The first autopilot car service project will be launched in downtown San Francisco and will be launched soon.

Unlike Waymo's bold exploration of commercialization progress, Cruise was established late, and GM behind it is also cautious about commercialization progress. The online time of its self-driving network car service project has been repeatedly postponed. After all, an international manufacturer doesn't want traffic accidents.

Therefore, it may take some time for Cruise to mass-produce driverless cars.

Judging from the current situation, from the perspective of mass production progress and commercialization process, Waymo abroad and Baidu in China are temporarily in the leading position. Waymo has ten years of technical research and development background support, and it is time to show the results. Coupled with Alphabet's financial and team support, it eliminates worries. The same is true, Waymo has started the road of commercialization.

Baidu is one of the three Internet giants in China, and its financial and technical background is beyond doubt. Its self-driving road is very different from Waymo. Baidu develops its own autopilot platform, and then opens it to cooperative car companies, so everyone can enjoy the autopilot system based on open source. Moreover, the timetable for Baidu's driverless layout is also very clear. This is not a press conference, and the official announcement is nothing.

Baidu launched the unmanned vehicle project on 20 13. Two years later, on 20 15, Baidu made a small experiment in this field. At that time, Baidu's self-driving cars realized fully automatic driving under domestic urban roads, loops and high-speed mixed road conditions. Since then, Baidu has been regarded as an important member of the list of autonomous driving arms races.

20 17 is an important year for Baidu. In April this year, Baidu officially announced the launch of the Apollo program, opened the autopilot platform, and formed an autopilot team with all players in the industry. At present, Baidu Apollo has been upgraded to version 3.0. In July last year, its first L4-class self-driving bus "Apollon" was mass-produced and put into operation in special scenes such as Beijing Haidian Park. In June 5438+ 10 of the same year, Baidu announced that the first batch of self-driving taxis in China will be tested and operated on a large scale in Changsha, and it is expected that the scale will reach 100 in 20 19.

On February 28 this year, at 65438, the "team" of Baidu Apollo driverless cars gathered in Changsha to conduct a multi-vehicle and multi-scene autopilot demonstration to show the strength of Baidu Apollo. In terms of mass production competition, L3-class self-driving cars jointly developed by Baidu Apollo, Beijing Automotive, Jianghuai Automobile, Chery Automobile and BYD Automobile will be mass-produced at 20 19, 2020, 202 1 respectively, and the L4-class driverless car cooperating with Hongqi will also land this year and be delivered next year.

At the autonomous driving feast, Baidu invited players, government agencies and road managers in the field of car building to realize vehicle-road coordination and form a closed-loop logic of unmanned commercialization. Baidu provides driverless technology, car companies provide prototypes, road managers are responsible for planning the road environment suitable for driverless cars, and government agencies are responsible for supervision. Everyone has the same interests and is working towards the same goal of unmanned commercialization.

At present, it seems that the unmanned commercialization road planned by Baidu has been launched on a large scale, which can be known from the fact that the number of car companies joining the Apollo family has reached 133.

Che Yun's summary:

Waymo's establishment of a factory to manufacture driverless cars is of great significance for promoting the industrialization of autonomous driving. Waymo began to step up the commercialization process. Of course, other leading players, especially Cruise and Uber, don't want to live behind others. I believe that in the near future, these two companies will have big moves to deal with it. Otherwise, the leaders Waymo and the second and third are getting wider and wider, which they don't want to see. In China, Baidu has joined hands with players in the industrial chain to take concrete actions. Will Tencent and Alibaba sit back and watch? Can Huawei still be ignored? This field will become more and more interesting.