ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report, 2018-2019- Low-speed Autonomous Vehicle

Low-speed Autonomous Driving Industry: Sales of Low-speed Autonomous Vehicles will Reach 11,000 Units in China in 2020

L4 and above autonomous driving suffers a setback but low-speed autonomous driving industry is advancing at a steady and fast pace. 

NAVYA, an autonomous minibus trailblazer, performed poorly in sales, far less than that of Baidu Apolong. 

But there is no doubt that 2019 will see robust sales of low-speed autonomous vehicle. Nuro.ai which runs low-speed self-driving delivery pods, raised $940 million from SoftBank Vision Fund, with which it will strenuously scale up its AV fleets. 

Baidu expects 10,000 Apollo-enabled L4 AVs in 2019, most of which will be low-speed ones. Idriveplus plans to produce 1,200 low-speed self-driving vehicles in 2019. 

On our conservative estimate, 11,000 low-speed AVs including self-driving passenger cars, low-speed autonomous trucks and autonomous working vehicles, will be sold in China in 2020, and the sales figure will soar to 104,000 units in 2023. 

Foreign low-speed autonomous vehicle firms are energetically dedicated to passenger cars while their Chinese peers focus on low-speed trucks. 

In 2017, global food and parcel delivery market was valued at a staggering $400 billion, including roughly $80 billion of "last-mile" delivery market. Eighty percent of packages will be delivered by autonomous vehicles in the next decade, as is predicted by McKinsey. 

Driverless delivery vehicle market will therefore be a tipping point of the low-speed autonomous driving market, where the key players include Nuro.ai, Starship, Auto X, Idriverplus, Neolix, Suning, Meituan, JD, Cainiao, Navibook, and Aisimba.

Yet, the promising driverless delivery vehicles are confronted with challenges as follows:

(a) High costs in early R&D and expensive maintenance cost. Due to technical and legal constraints, the self-driving vehicle without exception needs a safety officer, and even a security guard driving a car behind the driverless delivery vehicle.

(b) Public acceptance and policy barriers. Many Americans protest against small autonomous delivery vehicle, complaining about its infringement of people's rights of way now that the sidewalks are regularly encroached. Consequently, the number of self-driving delivery vehicles running on road is to be limited in the United States. In China, the autonomous delivery vehicle has to be allowed with a license, and the policy is being discussed and waits to be drafted, and the issuance of permits s impossible for the moment. Related standards are anticipated to be set down within 2019. 

(c) Still immature technologies and expensive products. A large number of autonomous vehicles fail to suit traffic environment on public roads and the real open road conditions are more complicated than those in communities and parks. Product stability desires to be tested.

(d) Vulnerability to damages. Like bike-sharing, the self-driving delivery vehicle will be readily destroyed by the immoralist and the deliveries will be possibly stolen if unattended.

Despite those aforementioned, the autonomous delivery vehicle is an irresistible trend, being expedited by the technical competence, channel distribution system and existing market resources of the key players.

The To B market is faced with not so many legal restrictions and damages as the To C market.

In October 2018, Cowarobot and Zoomlion co-founded a joint-stock subsidiary – Cowarobot Zoomlion Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd which is primarily focused on driverless sweepers, and they will lavish a total of at least RMB1 billion for mass-production of autonomous commercial vehicle, modification of production lines, operation of commercial fleets, among others.

The To B market features not so fierce competition. Beijing I-tage Technology Co., Ltd is engrossed in the driverless mining vehicle market; HiGo Automotive collaborated with UNIS to roll out indoor self-driving floor scrubber; Zoomlion partnered with Landing.AI (established by Andrew Ng) to develop autonomous agricultural machinery; UISEE launched autonomous luggage vehicle.