China's robotaxi push sparks concerns about job security for drivers

BEIJING — China's yearslong effort to make robotaxis is starting to summation traction with consumers — but it's besides rattling taxi drivers disquieted astir losing their jobs arsenic a effect of expanding competition.

Just arsenic GM's Cruise and Alphabet's Waymo person rolled retired driverless taxis successful San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, section Chinese governments from Beijing to Guangzhou person allowed home players to run robotaxi rides for the public.

This week, the rising prominence of robotaxis successful China began trending connected societal media.

As of Thursday morning, videos astir afloat autonomous driving taxi experiences were the 12th astir fashionable taxable connected Douyin, Bytedance's China mentation of TikTok.

Baidu's robotaxi portion Apollo Go became 1 of the apical 10 trending hashtags connected societal media level Weibo connected Wednesday pursuing reports of accelerated idiosyncratic adoption successful Wuhan city.

The institution began operating afloat driverless vehicles successful definite districts of Wuhan, 24/7 successful March.

Wuhan is the largest operational portion for Baidu's Apollo Go, 1 of the largest robotaxi operators successful China. The institution has much than 500 robotaxis operating successful the metropolis and plans to summation that to 1,000 by the extremity of the year.

When contacted by CNBC, Baidu had nary authoritative updates to share.

The accrued attraction connected robotaxis comes arsenic large Chinese cities ramp up support, portion smaller cities restricted ride-hailing apps successful the past fewer months.

Top societal media posts connected Wednesday were speedy to extrapolate from Wuhan's robotaxi tests, predicting an impending nationwide rollout and spawning hashtags like: "Are driverless ride-hailing cars stealing people's atom bowls." That's according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

Also making the rounds connected societal media was an entreaty successful precocious June by a taxi institution successful Wuhan seeking reduced taxes and much restrictions connected Apollo Go robotaxis arsenic good arsenic the fig of ride-hailing cars.

CNBC was incapable to independently verify the document, which claimed the taxi institution had to halt operating 4 of its 159-car fleet since April owed to falling income.

Wage maturation successful China wide has slowed from astir 10% yearly increases anterior to the pandemic, to 4% successful caller years, according to Goldman Sachs investigation published past month. The gait improved to 5.6% year-on-year maturation successful the archetypal quarter, the study said.

A surge of caller companies and ride-hailing drivers person meantime prompted immoderate section governments to restrict the industry.

The metropolis of Guyuan successful Ningxia autonomous portion announced that arsenic of May 12, it was suspending online ride-hailing businesses.

"Our city's taxi marketplace is already saturated," the announcement said successful Chinese, translated by CNBC.

Separately, the southwestern metropolis of Guiyang had suspended caller ride-hailing licenses for fractional a twelvemonth done June. The announcement said authorities were capable to region immoderate non-compliant ride-hailing businesses and cars.

China had much than 7 cardinal registered ride-hailing drivers arsenic of the extremity of May, according to the Ministry of Transport.

That's astir twice arsenic galore versus the 3.51 million drivers reported for July 2021, and 570,000 much drivers than the ministry reported arsenic of November.

In comparison, the U.S. had astir 400,000 taxi and ride-hailing drivers, shuttle drivers and chauffeurs successful 2022, according to the latest disposable figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The fig of ride-hailing companies successful China has besides climbed, from 241 successful 2021 to 351 successful May this year, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Multiple Chinese ministries successful January released a program to beforehand cloud-connected cars, including tests of astatine slightest 200 low-speed unmanned vehicles successful each aviator region. Last week, the aforesaid authorities released a database of 20 archetypal aviator cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Wuhan.

Those cities person already allowed robotaxi operators to test cars successful suburban areas.

Beijing metropolis successful November 2021 started to let Baidu's Apollo Go and startup Pony.ai to cod fares from the nationalist for rides with a information operator wrong the robotaxis.

Last year, Beijing metropolis fto the operators remove each unit from a few of the vehicles. The metropolis past period released draught rules that enactment the responsibility of a robotaxi postulation violation connected the car proprietor and manager if determination is nary driver.

The public-facing rides are presently subsidized, and the fig of vehicles connected the roadworthy are inactive acold little than those of accepted taxis.

The Apollo Go app showed Thursday that a 45-minute robotaxi thrust from Daxing airdrome to a confederate suburb of Beijing would beryllium afloat subsidized – the full 193.84 yuan ($26.66) outgo was waived. The app besides showed a 16-minute robotaxi thrust wrong that Beijing suburb would outgo 10.36 yuan, astir fractional the 20 yuan fare listed by ride-hailing apps, which tin telephone taxis.

Baidu

Baidu CEO Robin Li told investors successful May that much than 70% of Apollo Go robotaxi rides successful April were afloat driverless, with nary quality unit inside. He predicted that stock would scope 100% successful the coming quarters — and let Apollo Go to interruption adjacent successful Wuhan first.

The metropolis is the superior of Hubei province, which proclaimed successful a June 1 nonfiction its efforts to go the world's archetypal autonomous driving city.

"I conscionable got my driver's licence ... and there's already driverless cars? What was the constituent of maine taking the test?" according to a Chinese remark connected the article, translated by CNBC.

"In the abbreviated term, there's nary mode autonomous driving tin regenerate drivers," the Hubei authorities relationship said successful its reply.