China also wants to be at the forefront of autonomous cars

China is very clear that in the next 20 years it wants to lead the most important technologies, and electric and autonomous cars is one of them.

That is why it works and invests a lot in the fields related to them. Today, China already leads by far the manufacture of batteries for electric cars, and it is the country where the most electric cars are manufactured and sold, and it also wants to be at the forefront of autonomous cars. It does not seem that it wants to leave any gap free in that market.

It seems that they are going to do it through the technological giant Baidu and the car manufacturer Geely. Together they have set up a company called Jidu Automotive to offer autonomous cars from the year 2023.

The first model has been called Robo 01, which is a mix between a car and a robot. It works with a computer that contains a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, and has 2 lidars, 5 millimeter radar, several high-precision cameras, etc…, to be able to see what is happening around the car at all times.

Jidu intends to go to Level 4 of autonomous driving, where a driver is not needed, but it is not clear that they will. Because, with Level 4, if an accident occurs, the person responsible for it is the company that manufactured the driving system. And that’s big words.

In the photo above you can see a photo of the car, which has a 100 KWh battery, and a range of 600 km.

Except for isolated cases of very specific taxi services, today nobody offers level 4 of autonomous driving. In the case of Tesla it is a Level 2, and in the latest model of Mercedes a Level 3. And at all times the driver is required to be responsible for driving. So if an accident occurs, the responsibility lies with the driver.

I don’t think this situation will change for a long time, as it is a matter of responsibility that has great economic repercussions.

Today, more electric cars are produced in China than in the rest of the world combined, and they are racing to maintain their leadership, to include autonomous cars.

When will we wake up from the dream we are in?

It is quite possible that by the time we do so it will already be too late. And we will not be able to blame anyone, because we will be the only ones responsible.