In the city of Wuhan in central Hubei province, self-driving electric cars equipped with sensing equipment attached to the roof are becoming increasingly common. Some local residents stop to take photos. Others, like taxi driver Xiao Weiguo, are worried.

He has been driving a taxi for 14 years and said he sees a robot taxi every day during his shift.

“I would keep my distance from robot taxis, because they will stop if there is an obstacle or pedestrian in front of them. During peak hours, they can cause traffic jams. Its technology is not that mature,” Xiao said.

Self-driving cars remain largely experimental on a global scale. However, Chinese companies, with support from the Chinese government at different levels, are accelerating testing of this technology. Tesla is also can’t wait to get into the gameAnd said it aims to offer its fully autonomous driving technology early next year in China, pending regulatory approval from Chinese authorities. The company has would have floated The idea is to deploy this technology first in taxis in China, but it will face fierce domestic competition as it enters the market.

There is 16 Chinese cities are testing robot taxis. Among them, Beijing and Wuhan have the most advanced pilot projects. In most Chinese cities, autonomous vehicles are mainly confined to a small suburban area and are usually accompanied by a human driver for safety reasons.

Wuhan is the first city in China to allow mostly unmanned robot taxis to operate in a much larger area — approximately 1,160 square miles Or a third of the city — including part of its city center.

Chinese tech giant Baidu has the largest fleet of robo-taxis — about 400 – in Wuhan. That’s a small number compared to the tens of thousands of regular taxis and rideshare cars in a city of 13.8 million people.

Still, it’s causing a lot of anxiety among taxi drivers like Xiao, who already struggle to compete with ride-hailing apps, which offer plenty of discounts. They say self-driving taxis add to an already crowded industry.

“Once many robo-taxis are on the market, people like me will lose their jobs,” Xiao said.

But Ling Zhijun, a ride-hailing driver from Beijing, is more optimistic about his future.

He thinks the layout and complexity of driving in Beijing could limit the role of robo-taxis. The city center has many narrow streets filled with bikes and people zigzagging.

“Robot taxis stop when there is a pedestrian and cause traffic jams,” Ling said. “Robot taxis would not be able to circulate in the center of Beijing. They would get stuck in the alleys.

However, the Beijing pilot project does not only focus on autonomous vehicles. Even road intersections are equipped with cameras and sensors to help autonomous vehicles navigate better.

“China is one of the only countries, if not the only country, that has actually made this (integrative) approach one of its central aspects (in the development of autonomous driving technology),” said Andrew Stokols, lecturer in urban planning at the University of Ottawa. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In Beijing, there are nearly 900 autonomous vehicles, including taxis, delivery vehicles and buses. The local government has attracted tech giant Baidu, startups WeRide and Pony.ai, as well as e-commerce giant JD.com, to test their self-driving technology on the outskirts of the city in the Yizhuang area. .

Stokols studied the pilot zone in Beijing last summer, after speaking with technology experts, urban planners and testing self-driving taxis.

He said Beijing’s approach to integrating autonomous taxis and road infrastructure has some safety benefits. For example, if an 18-wheel truck blocks a robo-taxi’s view of an intersection, cameras at the intersection will see oncoming traffic around that obstacle.

“(The cameras) would be able to alert the car earlier when approaching the intersection, and it would be able to slow down or brake more gently,” he said.

However, he said Beijing’s pilot project would be difficult to expand, in part because of the cost of upgrading road intersections. In 2022, Beijing would have cameras and sensors installed in only about 300 road intersections, but no updates have occurred since.

Additionally, the process of ordering a robot taxi, whether in Beijing or Wuhan, is not yet smooth. It may take 30 minutes before a passenger is assigned a car. Additionally, there are designated pickup points which are sometimes rare.

“Marketplace” had to take cars driven by humans to get to the robot taxi pick-up points. At least one driver said he wouldn’t get in a self-driving taxi because he didn’t want to risk his life. The Chinese government is actively promoting the autonomous vehicle industry, but it has not released data on safety incidents involving self-driving cars.

However, taxi driver Xiao agreed to test a robot taxi with “Marketplace” in Wuhan. Once inside an unmanned taxi, he got excited and called his friend on the phone.

“Look,” he said in a video call to another taxi driver, “the robot taxi is going pretty fast, even a little over the speed limit.”

But Xiao was less impressed with the robo-taxi’s road skills when there was more traffic. The car slowed down. Eager cars with human drivers behind them accelerated, causing the robot taxi to hesitate when changing lanes or brake abruptly.

“You see, the car just stopped. If it was during the morning rush hour and it stopped like that, it would cause a traffic jam,” he said.

We arrived at our destination 37 minutes later and paid 36.6 yuan, or $5.

However, without the deep discounts offered by Baidu, the trip would have cost 102 yuan, or $14, which is far more than what a ride in Xiao’s taxi would cost. He said self-driving technology is more advanced than he initially thought. But the journey has not been so smooth.

“The robot taxi does not change lanes very smoothly. So it can make passengers sick,” he said.

However, Xiao said, self-driving technology continues to improve. He just hopes to continue driving his regular taxi until he retires in a few years.

Additional research by Charles Zhang.