Wuhan citizens praise driverless cars, and the Municipal Transportation Bureau will work with leading companies to create a new blueprint for the intelligent connected vehicle industry

"Wuhan City attaches great importance to the development of the intelligent connected vehicle industry, and has successively opened more than 1,000 kilometers of open roads for intelligent connected vehicles, encouraging leading intelligent connected vehicle companies to settle in Wuhan and work together to create a new blueprint for the development of Wuhan's intelligent connected vehicle industry. As a leading company in the autonomous driving industry, Baidu Carrot Run attaches great importance to the development of Wuhan's intelligent connected vehicle industry. Since settling in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone in August 2022, it has been deeply engaged in autonomous driving travel services. Baidu Carrot Run will continue to promote autonomous driving experience services to allow more citizens to feel the technological charm brought by autonomous driving technology."

On May 30, on the Wuhan city message board, the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Bureau's response to citizens' demands for "increased positive publicity for driverless cars" attracted widespread attention.

The above-mentioned citizens said in their messages that driverless cars not only provide citizens with a good travel experience, smooth and safe driving, and 24-hour service, but also have important significance for improving Wuhan's city image and promoting the development of new quality productivity. They hope that drivers will learn driverless cars and abide by traffic rules to jointly maintain Wuhan's city image. They also hope that relevant departments will increase positive publicity for driverless cars among drivers and tolerate and support the development of new technologies.

On the Wuhan city message board, it is not uncommon to see citizens calling for the expansion of the operating scope of driverless cars and giving thumbs up to driverless cars. "Robot Kuaipao has been operating in a standardized manner in Wuhan for a long time. When will it be available in Yangluo Street?", "I see that Qiaokou District is already within the operating scope, but I have not been able to take a taxi. When will the people in Qiaokou District be able to experience it?" and other related messages have become the best portrayal of the two-way rush of Wuhan citizens and autonomous driving.

In Wuhan, autonomous driving has long become an important way for Wuhan citizens to travel. Whether it is to visit popular attractions or for daily commuting, "taking an unmanned vehicle to visit Wuhan" has become a unique cultural landscape in Wuhan, and Turnip Run has also been recognized and supported by Wuhan citizens. In daily life outside of the message board, Turnip Run has also repeatedly received good reviews from users.

"Because of the geographical advantage, there are many driverless cars, which are not only convenient but also stable to drive, and it is also safe to take a taxi at night." A user who lives in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone said that from December 2022 to date, her Carrot Run orders have reached 719.

Not only does Tao take the self-driving car for travel, she also often recommends the car to nearby residents, encouraging them to register accounts to take taxis, so that neighbors around her can also experience the self-driving car. "I am like the 'civilian ambassador' of the car," the user said with a smile.

As a new technology, autonomous driving has also become a "magic tool" for parent-child education for Wuhan citizens. Every weekend, Ms. Huang takes her 8-year-old son on a ride on the Carrot Run to experience the "black technology" up close.

"The development of any new thing will have a certain impact (on old things). Once someone thinks there is something wrong, it will be magnified infinitely and exaggerated to the people around them. But we, the users who often ride in Carrot Park, think it is very good. The safety factor is sufficient, the ride is smooth and comfortable, and there is no such behavior as running red lights, cutting in, or suddenly changing lanes." Ms. Huang said that her children also think that such driverless cars are very novel.

Real user feedback has become the driving force for the development of LuoBoKuaiPao. As one of the representatives of new quality productivity, since landing in Wuhan Economic Development Zone in May 2022 and launching the first fully unmanned autonomous driving commercial operation in China in August, LuoBoKuaiPao has been adhering to the mission of "making cars smarter and travel simpler", following the pace of government innovation policies, and continuously improving its technical and service capabilities. Especially in 2024, LuoBoKuaiPao has successively opened airport transfers, cross-river passages, and 7*24 travel services on some sections of the road, and is committed to providing all passengers with safe, comfortable, green and low-carbon travel services.

Not only Wuhan citizens, but also tourists from other places who visit Wuhan must check in. On social media platforms, videos such as "Wuhan's black technology shocks foreigners" and "When will the driverless car drive to my hometown" have helped Wuhan break through the circle, and the black technology of driverless driving has become Wuhan's new city name card.

Behind this is the innovative ambition of an automobile city and the unremitting efforts of a technology company over the past decade.

At present, when Wuhan's traditional automobile industry is facing transformation and upgrading, autonomous driving, as a new type of productivity, has provided assistance and support for the development of Wuhan's intelligent connected automobile industry.

As an important national "double intelligence" demonstration city and a practitioner and leader of autonomous driving policies, Wuhan has always attached great importance to and seized the opportunity of rapid growth in the market demand for new energy vehicles, adhered to the development direction of electrification, intelligence, and networking, and unswervingly promoted the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry, opened up new fields, and won new tracks. In the past two years, Wuhan has accelerated the opening of autonomous driving test roads, and was the first in the country to issue a pilot policy for fully unmanned commercial driving, achieving national innovative breakthroughs in multiple autonomous driving commercial application scenarios such as cross-regional travel, cross-river travel, and airport highway travel.

As of the end of 2023, the total mileage of open test roads in Wuhan has exceeded 3,378.73 kilometers (one-way mileage), covering 12 administrative districts, a radiation area of ​​approximately 3,000 square kilometers, and reaching a population of over 7.7 million. The number of open mileage and open areas remains first in the country, and it is also the world's largest autonomous driving travel service area.

Baidu started to develop the field of autonomous driving in 2013, and has been insisting on high-pressure, marathon-style R&D investment for ten years, driving long-term development with technological innovation. So far, Baidu Apollo's high-level autonomous driving safety test mileage has exceeded 100 million kilometers, and it has more than 5,000 autonomous driving patent families, of which the number of high-level autonomous driving patent families ranks first in the world.

It is worth mentioning that on the evening of May 30th, Beijing time, Time magazine announced the 2024 "TIME100 Most Influential Companies" list. With its leading achievements in the field of artificial intelligence - Wenxin Yiyan language model and driverless cars, Baidu was named a global leader and became the only Chinese company selected in this category.

Looking around the world, as one of the fastest-growing scenarios for the implementation of artificial intelligence, the smoke of war has never dissipated in the field of autonomous driving among various economies. At a time when China has become the largest automobile exporter, the global autonomous driving industry is also undergoing an undercurrent of industrial competition.

At present, China's economy has entered a stage of high-quality development, and the development of new quality productivity has become an important task at present and in the future. This year's government work report also proposed that in 2024, we must vigorously promote the construction of a modern industrial system and accelerate the development of new quality productivity. As a typical application scenario for artificial intelligence to empower the automotive industry, autonomous driving is not only a new track for the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, but also an important field for the development of new quality productivity. At a time when the pilot projects of intelligent transportation pilot applications, intelligent connected vehicle access and road pilot projects, and vehicle-road-cloud "integration" are being intensively promoted by national ministries and commissions, the commercialization and industrialization of driverless technology is accelerating.

In order to further play the leading role of new quality productivity, Wuhan will also build a new chapter of autonomous driving with technology companies including Baidu around the common vision of building a strong transportation country, and form a batch of replicable, demonstrable and popularizable advanced results with national influence, so that autonomous driving can enter the daily lives of more Wuhan citizens and promote China's smart car industry to lead the world.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.