In addition to China and the United States, Japan is also actively opening up the territory for the self-driving industry and hopes that the industry will grow into a vibrant flower on the country’s soil.
Waymo, the self-driving division of Alphabet, recently announced a major international partnership with GO, a Japanese transportation and taxi application, to introduce self-driving technology to Tokyo to open the first stop of its international road trip.
What kind of unusual “spark” can be produced between autopilot and Japan? Is Japan a hot land for autopilot? Unlike the “vigorous” development of the self-driving industry in China and the United States, Japan’s self-driving industry has developed somewhat quietly.
This puts a “question mark” on the development of the country’s self-driving industry, one from whether the country has fertile soil suitable for autopilot to thrive, and the other from the country’s long-standing accumulation of self-driving industry (including, but not limited to, autopilot technology, supply chain, etc.). According to the first question, whether in terms of Japan’s demographics or policy support, Japan has a natural environment for the self-driving industry to “take root”.
The labor shortage caused by an aging population has plagued Japan for a long time, and in terms of transportation, the self-driving industry will solve this problem very well.
According to United Nations standards, more than 20% of the population over the age of 65 is to enter an aging society.
Data show that by the end of 2023, the proportion of elderly people aged 65 and over in Japan has exceeded 28%, making it one of the most aging countries in the world.
Of course, the Japanese government is aware of the negative impact of the country’s aging population earlier than the outside world, and the Japanese government has long made plans for the self-driving industry.
In October 2013, the Autopilot system Committee under Japan’s Ministry of Land and Transport released a roadmap for the introduction of the autopilot system.
It is reported that the goal of the roadmap is to deploy autopilot technology on highways by the early 2020s.
It also makes requirements for three target autopilot application types: passenger cars, logistics services and transportation services, as well as the corresponding scenarios.
In 2014, Japan formulated the “official and civilian ITS concept and Roadmap”, and revised it every year according to the latest changes in the situation, mainly including autopilot technology scene propulsion goal and autopilot advance time.
In Japan’s roadmap, L3 and above are called highly autopilot, and L4 and L5 are called fully autopilot.
Waymo, entering 2024, the Japanese government has tightened the pace of promoting the development of the self-driving industry.
In July this year, people’s Daily reported that the draft of digital administrative and financial reform compiled by the Japanese government made it clear that by the end of 2025, all prefectures need to promote L4 self-driving technology under certain conditions.
It is reported that promoting the digital development of society is one of the key policies of Japan’s Kishida cabinet.
The draft stresses that social change will be achieved by making full use of digitization to deal with the social problems of Japan’s rapidly declining population.
Among them, the core of the transportation field is to accelerate the commercialization of self-driving technology, and the Japanese government plans to allow all prefectures to officially launch year-round self-driving buses by 2026, or have made relevant plans.
According to the Japanese government, as of May 1, there are only 16 places in Japan that allow self-driving vehicles to run on ordinary roads all year round, including only one L4 self-driving.
In addition, it is worth noting that the above draft also proposes that the review time required for future applications for autopilot will be reduced from the current 11 months to 2 months.
This shows Japan’s desire and strong demand for the accelerated landing of the self-driving industry.
What kind of autopilot does Japan need? Throughout the business application history of the global self-driving industry, its landing field is generally from side B (such as closed roads and closed parks) to end C.
Generally speaking, with reference to the development stage of the self-driving industry in China and the United States, due to the limitations of autopilot technology, complex road conditions and the maturity of the self-driving market, compared with the B-end, C-end is a relatively restricted area of the self-driving industry.
This is also one of the important reasons why autopilot manufacturers committed to the development of Robotaxi experienced a “cold winter” a few years ago.
But it is worth noting that Japan seems to have a stronger demand for higher-level autopilot, such as L4 and L5 autopilot, due to the serious problem of an aging population.
and these self-driving technologies and products urgently need to be landed in areas of life that are closely related to ordinary consumers.
Waymo, at present, the shortage of bus and taxi drivers in many Japanese cities is becoming increasingly obvious.
as far as buses are concerned, relevant data show that, for example, the number of bus drivers in Hokkaido and Sapporo has been reduced by several hundred in the past five years.
Although Japan has raised the retirement age of bus drivers to 65, there is still a shortage of manpower, so some bus lines have been closed.
In other words, in the field of short-distance transportation, which is closest to ordinary consumers, there is the biggest business opportunity for the landing of Japan’s self-driving industry.
Some analysts say that in some remote areas, vehicles operating public transport often face the problem of shortage of personnel due to a shortage of young people.
Therefore, the Japanese government hopes to improve the situation by introducing autopilot technology.
In addition, it should be specifically mentioned that in addition to the labor constraints caused by an aging population, taxi fares in Japan are relatively high.
According to Waymo, the starting price of taxis in Japan is usually as high as 700 yen (about 42 yuan), which makes passengers feel expensive at the initial stage.
Second, taxi mileage is also something to be reckoned with, with fares ranging from 400 to 700 yen per kilometer, which accumulates rapidly even for short trips.
Taking a taxi at night is even worse, with night fare increases at certain times and additional baggage or special service charges adding to the bill.
In addition, parking fees and high oil prices are also important components of taxi costs.
Parking spaces in Japanese cities are scarce and expensive, while the operating costs of taxis are rising as a result of rising oil prices.
In other words, whether it is a bus or a taxi, JapanAutopilot is urgently needed to solve all kinds of problems.
How does Japan do autopilot? It is reported that at present, more than 10 cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Yokohama City, allow self-driving cars to engage in commercial trial operations such as taxis and city buses in specific areas and within a specific period of time.
For example, in May 2023, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, began to provide the public with the first mobile service of an L4 self-driving vehicle in Japan, using a seven-seat vehicle without a driver and driving a fixed interval of about 2 km of road.
In November, Gifu, Japan, launched a self-driving bus to provide pick-up service for citizens, which is equipped with a L2-L4-class self-driving system and operates mainly in the city center.
Japan’s latest Road Traffic Law Amendment Act, which was formally implemented on April 1, 2023, marks the actual operation of self-driving cars in Japan.
It is reported that the Japanese government plans to expand the areas to which the amendment is adapted to 40 places across the country by 2025.
On the policy side, the Japanese government has made a lot of efforts, so how do Japanese companies develop the self-driving industry? At present, many of Japan’s relatively large-scale self-driving manufacturers belong to the “Big Brothers” of the Japanese fuel car era-leading Japanese companies such as Toyota and Nissan.
Toyota and Nissan have spared no effort, especially in promoting self-driving taxi services.
In April this year, Japanese media reported that Toyota would launch an L4 self-driving service in Japan this summer without manual driving under certain conditions.
To this end, Toyota is building an operating environment in Tokyo, which will first be provided free of charge starting in the summer of 2024 and will be charged when it expands to downtown Tokyo after 2025.
Toyota, in addition, Toyota also cooperates with Chinese self-driving manufacturers in the research and development of self-driving technology.
On November 5, the L4 driverless model jointly developed and produced by Horse Zhihang and Toyota, the pure electric platinum wisdom 4X Robotaxi concept car, was on display at the 7th China International Import Expo.
Similarly, Nissan plans to launch an autopilot service in Japan within three years.
Specifically, in 2024, Nissan will conduct driving tests in future areas of Yokohama.
between 2025 and 2026, Nissan will conduct service demonstration tests in Yokohama, including the future of Yokohama, Sakuragi-cho and Kannei.
There will be 20 test cars, and each car will be equipped with safe drivers.
in 2027, Nissan hopes to start providing services in three or four cities, including rural areas, with a fleet of dozens of cars.
It should be mentioned that the landing of autopilot technology is not just put into practical application.
Autopilot technology needs to obtain huge amounts of data and iterative algorithms to support its continuous training and growth.
With reference to the development strategy of Chinese and American self-driving manufacturers, generally speaking, self-driving manufacturers choose to quickly collect a large amount of data through operational means to reach the long-tail scenario, so as to achieve iterative technology updates.
For example, Waymo and Cruise are looking for cooperation between travel platforms to collect enough data to help their own technical iterations.
Chinese autopilot manufacturers prefer travel platforms with car background, forming a combination of “self-driving companies + car companies + travel platforms”: enjoy Road Travel + Momenta, Cao Cao Travel + pony Zhihang, T3 + Light Boat Zhihang, Ruqi Travel + Wenyuan Zhixing / pony Zhixing and other cooperative camps.
This time, Waymo entered the Japanese market, and Japan Transportation, the largest taxi company in Tokyo, was selected to take charge of the management and maintenance of Waymo vehicles.
And at the beginning of the project, Japanese traffic drivers will manually operate the vehicles to collect map data.
For example, omni-directional mapping of key areas of the Japanese capital, including the port area, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, the central district, Shinagawa and Jiangdong district.
It is worth noting that the traffic rule in Japan is to drive on the left and the driving habit of Japanese vehicles is right rudder .
This also poses some challenges for autopilot technology to adapt to different driving environments.
Waymo said that Tokyo’s heavy traffic and unique road layout will provide a new test of its self-driving technology.
In the past, Waymo’s road tests focused on a number of cities in the United States, including dealing with environmental conditions such as rainfall in Miami and extremely high temperatures in death Valley in California.
In order to better adapt to the Japanese driving environment, Waymo also plans to test its self-driving taxi on a closed road in the United States, which is designed to simulate the driving environment in Tokyo, Japan.
It is worth mentioning that, contrary to Waymo’s aggressive entry into the Japanese self-driving market, GM recently announced that it had abandoned its Cruise self-driving taxi program and terminated its partnership with Honda, which was scheduled to launch a self-driving taxi service in Tokyo in 2026.
It is reported that Cruise originally planned to use the “Origin” self-driving taxi specially designed for the Japanese market.
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