- [Announcer] Every morning since April,

more than a hundred self-driving taxis

leave this operation center

and take to the streets of Shanghai.

- If you want to call for our AutoX car,

you would just go onto the app.

- [Announcer] The autonomous fleet's goal?

Navigate the chaotic traffic of the tiny city

and sweep up data on how other vehicles and people move.

Each bit of information is then fed back

to the servers of Chinese startup, AutoX,

perfecting algorithms that its CEO, Jianxiong Xiao,

says will soon make China a nation of self-driving cars.

- If the pandemic in countries like U.S. continue,

then the traffic is not coming back.

The pandemic give us a head-start advantage

compared to players outside China.

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- [Announcer] When lockdowns across the U.S.

forced American companies like Alphabet's Waymo,

Ford's Argo and Uber,

to suspend the vast majority

of its on-the-road testing in March,

AutoX was getting back on the road

because China was emerging from lockdown.

- Here in the United States,

most of the companies have had to stop

all of their on-road testing,

having to rely almost entirely on simulation work.

Having a few months of additional time to do that testing

will probably benefit the Chinese companies.

- [Announcer] Auto analysts say American companies

are still the industry's leaders.

But Chinese startups are using the time

that the pandemic has bought them to get ahead.

According to Boston Consulting Group,

since 2019, Chinese companies,

including Baidu, DiDi, and AutoX,

more than doubled their fleets of self-driving vehicles

on Chinese roads to 260.

The urgency to limit

face-to-face interactions during the pandemic

has also helped companies raise $1.4 billion

so far this year.

- If we can make the car fully automatic,

you don't need a driver.

It's actually much safer considering COVID-19.

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- [Announcer] This is the Shenzhen headquarters of AutoX

and during the past few months,

the team has been working on a new radar system

that can see a traffic light

or another car that's 1,600 feet away.

- There's a camera-cleaning system,

so that our car can drive under heavy raining situation.

- [Announcer] Xiao, says he expects the technology

to be first widely adopted in China,

since not many people have driver's licenses.

- In the U.S. culture-wise,

everyone know how to drive,

but not many people in China can afford to have a car.

And that's why shared mobility is a must-have.

There's no other choice.

- [Announcer] AutoX is unveiling a revolutionary way.

- [Announcer] AutoX also has two R and D centers

in Silicon Valley and San Diego

to test and feed information back to China.

Xiao says the pandemic accelerated his company's plans.

In April, it opened what he says

is China's largest self-driving

taxi operation center in Shanghai.

From the start,

the Chinese government has played a critical role.

In late February,

Beijing said a third of all cars produced in China

should be self-driving by 2025.

- That's really where the biggest advantage is going to be.

- [Announcer] Sam Abuelsamid is a car analyst,

who's been researching the development

of self-driving cars in China and the U.S.

for more than 13 years.

- On deploying that the largest adoption

of automated driving technology in the next decade

will be in China.

The addressable market in China

is much larger than anywhere else.

And the government policies in China

definitely have the potential to increase that adoption.

- [Announcer] In Shanghai, the local government

has created a special 30-mile zone

where companies can test the latest features

of their self-driving cars.

- This looks like a normal bus stop

but this is one of the places

where people can call for our AutoX self-driving car.

- [Announcer] The most important technology

that the local government installed

are the 5G sensors along the roads

that help to quickly stream loads of data to the taxis.

- The white boxes, basically they have the transmitters.

There are some cameras that are installed

on the side of the road.

So what they do, they would detect the objects.

- [Announcer] This infrastructure

is called vehicle-to-everything or V2X.

Auto analysts say,

the U.S. has rolled out nearly 100 V2X projects,

far less than Beijing's requirement

to cover 90% of highways in China with the technology

by the end of the year.

- If there's a truck in front of the automated vehicle,

that sensor's not gonna be able to see

what's on the other side of that truck

or what's around the corner.

But adding V2X allows the vehicle

to extend its situational awareness beyond line of sight.

And that's something that I think

the U.S. is definitely further behind.

- [Announcer] To catch up,

analysts say American self-driving car makers themselves

would have to spend billions of dollars for V2X fitted roads

or create vehicles that are equipped

with sophisticated technology

that wouldn't need to rely on 5G roads at all.

While Waymo and Ford's Argo said

they restarted some of their road operations in May,

analysts say the bulk of U.S. testing will be limited

until the pandemic is brought under control.

Auto analysts say,

the country to first mass-produce self-driving vehicles

will be the one to shape the future

of not just shared transportation

but other key industries that have seen a boost

during the pandemic.

- Goods delivery is likely to be a better opportunity

in the near term for automated vehicles.

The trend towards more e-commerce

is going to continue and accelerate

and people are going to be relying more on deliveries.

- [Announcer] And AutoX CEO, Xiao,

wants to make sure his cars are ready

when that transition happens.

- The Chinese market is very huge.

You can do in one city in China,

you can use the same technology,

the same business model,

you can copy in the following 200 city in China.

Another country may have only three major cities.

Then the maximum you can do is multiply by three.

There's not much financial return.

But in China, we can make tons of money.

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