What does the future look like with Robotaxi? It can turn parking lots into parks and make cities a better place. "At a recent Tesla product launch, Musk made the above vision for the development prospects of Robotaxi. At the same time, its Robotaxi model Cybercab was officially unveiled.
As Tesla's powerful competitors in the Robotaxifield, Baidu's Apollo Go and Google's Waymo have also made new moves recently. A global autonomous driving competition has once again begun.
The market is beginning to see a pattern of competition among three parties
Although the entry time points are different, the Robotaxi market has formed a pattern of competition among Apollo Go, Tesla and Waymo globally. And there are significant differences in technological level and operational scale.
In terms of technology, Waymo has adopted high-precision hardware configuration and advanced algorithms, equipping its autonomous vehicles with up to 29 cameras, 6 laser radars, and multiple millimeter wave radars, which can cope with complex and changing urban environments. Through a large amount of actual test data, the safety and reliability of the system are ensured.
Tesla adheres to the technology route of "pure vision+FSD", relying on software algorithms to achieve end-to-end driving control through neural networks.
Baidu Apollo has achieved higher cost-effectiveness by optimizing hardware configuration. The sixth generation model integrates 12 cameras, 8 laser radars, and 6 millimeter wave radars. Although the number of sensors is less than Waymo, the Apollo system can still provide high-precision environmental perception and decision-making capabilities through intelligent algorithm optimization.
The reporter from Huaxia Times learned from Baidu that they are about to release Apollo Autonomous Driving Open Platform 10.0, which will be equipped with Baidu's latest autonomous driving model ADFM. Apollo Open Platform 10.0 excels in addressing adaptability issues in autonomous driving scenarios, with significant improvements in obstacle detection success rates and safety in extreme weather scenarios.
In terms of operational scale, according to Waymo's official announcement, as of August, the weekly paid trips for its Robotaxi service in the United States have exceeded 100000, doubling the 50000 reported in May. Currently, Waymo is offering paid autonomous taxi services in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and plans to launch the service in Austin and Atlanta next year.
Apollo Go has realized large-scale operation in 11 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Changsha, Jiaqing, Yangquan and Hefei. According to the data provided by Baidu, by the end of the second quarter of this year, Apollo Go had provided approximately 899000 Robotaxi rides, up 26% year on year. As of July 28, Apollo Go has provided more than 7 million automated travel services for the public.
Although Tesla Robotaxi has no formal commercial operation, it uses a large group of car owners to continuously accumulate driving data to train its auto drive system. At present, Tesla's FSD system has accumulated over 1.6 billion miles of driving data worldwide, enabling rapid iteration of its autonomous driving technology.
The industrial processes of China and the United States each have their own advantages
Roland Berger Global Partner Wu Zhao analyzed to Huaxia Times reporters that in terms of development path, China and the United States have combined the characteristics of their respective Robotaxi commercialization progress in terms of policy relaxation scale and standards.
The commercialization process of Robotaxi in the United States has shown a more open attitude, encouraging companies to explore and innovate boldly in the field of autonomous driving technology. However, Cruise's operation in San Francisco has caused multiple accidents in the short term, seriously undermining public trust. Afterwards, the California Department of Vehicles suspended the operating license of Cruise's autonomous taxis.
China's autonomous driving basically follows a rhythmic and gradual development path, with regional openness and technological safety verification running parallel, avoiding imbalances in factors such as regulation, technology, and public acceptance, "said Wu Zhao.
The competition in the field of autonomous driving is not simply a competition between enterprises, but also a technological game between China and the United States in the high-tech field.
Although China's autonomous driving started a bit later, the overall trend is showing a latecomer first mover. Through unified policy support and active promotion by local governments, the rapid development of Robotaxi has been promoted in terms of industrial support and policy assistance. For example, Beijing has been the first to release testing standards for autonomous vehicles since 2019, gradually relaxing the road conditions for autonomous vehicles; Wuhan has established a demonstration zone, providing a vast testing ground for the application of autonomous driving technology and becoming an important city for the commercial operation of Robotaxi in China.
Relying on China's huge automobile market and the rapid promotion of the integration of car, road and cloud, in addition to Apollo Go, other major players in the Chinese Robotaxi field, such as Xiaoma Zhixing, Wen Yuanzhixing, AutoX, Ruqi Chuxing, Yuan Rongqixing, are also actively promoting the commercialization of the landing.
Due to significant policy differences among states in the United States, California, Arizona, and other states have taken the lead in establishing clear regulatory frameworks for autonomous vehicles and have promoted the commercial operation of Waymo and Cruise by issuing fully autonomous driving licenses. But these policy differences have also led to uneven development among states.
The "catfish effect" driven by Tesla
With the release of Tesla Robotaxi, competition in the Robotaxi industry has intensified and the pace of development will significantly accelerate. Despite entering the field of Robotaxi relatively late, in the view of Wang Xiaojing, Chief Scientist of the National Intelligent Transportation System Engineering Technology Research Center and Chairman of the China Intelligent Transportation Industry Alliance, Tesla is still regarded as a strong competitor to domestic Robotaxi. When talking about Tesla's robotaxi product, he said that Cybercab has been clearly launched in the United States, followed by China and Europe, and finally deployed around the world.
At present, it mainly operates in the United States. Once it enters the Chinese market, I think it will promote domestic autonomous driving, especially the faster development of the autonomous taxi industry. Because if you don't develop or occupy the market, it will come in, so we must accelerate now, "Wang Xiaojing said.
In terms of operational mode, Musk's plan is also different from mainstream players in the market. At present, the mainstream Robotaxi operation model in the industry is the "Golden Triangle" model, which involves the joint efforts of autonomous driving technology companies, travel platforms, and car companies, relying on aggregation platforms to integrate the advantageous resources of all parties.
Tesla plans to operate its own Robotaxi fleet. Musk has stated that Tesla owners can add or remove their vehicles from the fleet at any time; Tesla owners can decide the scope of their vehicles, and can choose from multiple modes such as for friends/family only, for five-star users only, or for anyone to use.
Currently, the industry generally believes that 2026 is the turning point for the commercialization of Robotaxi on a large scale. Xiaopeng Motors Chairman He Xiaopeng recently stated that in the second half of 2025, the software user experience of Robotaxi will be benchmarked against overseas first-class Robotaxi on mass-produced cars, and plans to officially launch Robotaxi in 2026; On October 14th, Gong Xin, CEO of Caocao Travel, a travel platform under Geely, revealed that Caocao Travel will launch a fully customized Robotaxi model within two years.
Perhaps by then, the competitive landscape of Robotaxi will become even more intense.