Missing link: A Chinese ship is coming – even for autonomous driving?
The same is happening with driverless transport as with e-mobility: California is experimenting, we are regulating and China is expanding its market.
Is Germany losing out on autonomous driving?
(Bild: metamorworks/Shutterstock.com)
When it came to electromobility, it was said for a long time: customers don't want it, the combustion engine is unbeatable anyway and if it does come, it would be easy for German manufacturers to maintain their technological leadership in the electric age.
As we know, things turned out differently: a start-up from California has shown that it does work: Tesla. And the German manufacturers have been asleep and are lagging behind their traditional role as technology leaders. The laughing third is the Chinese car industry, not least thanks to the initial spark provided by Tesla's establishment in Shanghai just five years ago.
A similar development is emerging in autonomous driving: Although Germany is leading the way with its 2021 law on autonomous driving, not much is happening here. The Chinese leadership, on the other hand, is promoting the technology at all levels and is once again assigning Tesla the role of revitalizing the domestic competition. Tesla is allowed to test its autonomous driving functions in China - with regulatory consecration. And this at a time when it may be about to reach the "level of productivity", the phase in the Gartner hype cycle at which the commercial application of a technology succeeds. (For an overview, see: 20 years of autonomous vehicles: where do we stand?)
Red carpet for Tesla in e-mobility
In July 2018, Tesla CEO Elon Musk signed a contract with the regional government of Shanghai that allowed him to build Tesla's third Gigafactory there. China's party and state leadership even allowed Tesla to operate the previously founded Tesla Shanghai Co., Ltd. as a wholly owned subsidiary and not as a joint venture with a domestic manufacturer, as had always been mandatory for foreign manufacturers to date.
The reason for these unique conditions is that Tesla was intended to play the role of a starter for the domestic electrical industry, a model that China has successfully used in several sectors. According to Marina Zhang, a specialist in China's innovation policy, the leadership calculated that "Tesla's entry would help China build its own supply chains in the electric vehicle market". The calculation worked.
In order to keep costs low, Tesla preferred to source parts from domestic suppliers, which currently account for 90 percent and are expected to reach 100 percent by the end of the year. As a side effect, a world-class supplier industry for e-vehicles was created.
In response to Tesla's market entry, the acceptance of electric vehicles in China has increased significantly. Subsequently, Tesla's vehicles became status symbols and sought-after luxury goods in China, similar to Apple's iPhones. Five years after the start of production in Shanghai, 1.6 million Teslas are on the road in China, hardly fewer than in the USA.
FSD receives regulatory consecration
Something similar seems to be happening with autonomous driving. Tesla has just cleared an important hurdle in establishing its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in the world's largest car market. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers recently granted a license to Tesla, allowing the company to test its autonomous driving features on public roads in China. The decision coincided with the Tesla CEO's surprise visit to the Beijing auto show, where he met Premier Li Qiang.
In January, Tesla was ordered by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) to recall all its vehicles on the road in China to fix problems with its Autopilot driver assistance system and reduce the risk of collisions.
Tesla is the first non-Chinese company to receive such a regulatory blessing and thus market access in China. The Model 3 and Model Y built in the Gigafactory in Shanghai will likely gain better access to government facilities, airports and highways. Industry analyst Tom Narayan is convinced that this is an important step for Tesla to become the "industry standard for software" with its FSD system in China.
Tesla's technology partner is Baidu, China's search engine giant. Baidu provides mapping and navigation functions and grants Tesla access to its mapping license for data collection on China's public roads. In China, all autonomous driving systems must obtain a mapping qualification before they can be used on the roads.
China has set itself the goal of becoming a leader in the field of autonomous driving by 2035. Chinese industrial policy hopes that this step will provide decisive impetus for the domestic industry - with the aim of Chinese companies not only serving the domestic market in this area, but also becoming global market leaders in the future.
The recipe from the electromobility sector could also prove its worth here - Tesla can establish itself as a premium user and at the same time act as a technological driver for the industry. With the hoped-for end result of a triumphant advance of Chinese technology into the mainstream.
