Pilot trials of robotaxis are currently active in over 20 cities across China, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing, making it one of only two countries with large-scale driverless car operations, the other being the US. This rapid development positions China as a competitor to the US in future technologies but also highlights the problem of labor dislocation as human jobs are replaced by robots.
Financial institutions like HSBC and Goldman Sachs predict a significant and irreversible rise of autonomous vehicles. Goldman Sachs forecasts China's robotaxi market to grow from $54 million this year to $47 billion by 2035, with the fleet size reaching 1.9 million vehicles and capturing 25% of the taxi market. HSBC expects the robotaxi fleet to increase tenfold in the next two years. Pan Helin, an economist, suggests that workers in repetitive roles with low barriers to entry will be the first to be replaced, affecting over 7.5 million ride-hailing drivers in China, as well as millions in logistics. Alibaba's Cainiao Group anticipates deploying over 200,000 unmanned vehicles by the end of the decade, having already delivered 40 million parcels with driverless vehicles. Baidu's Apollo Go has already provided more than 14 million cumulative rides, with 2.2 million fully driverless rides in a single quarter.
In London, a partnership between Uber and UK-based AI startup Wayve recently launched the city's first commercial self-driving taxi service with 15 electric Ford Mustangs. This service follows the establishment of similar operations in over 20 cities in the US, China, and the Middle East. While 42% of Londoners oppose autonomous passenger vehicles due to safety and job loss concerns, over 140,000 people have registered to try Uber's AVs. Goldman Sachs projects a $415 billion global robotaxi market by 2035, anticipating significant cost reductions due to operational and scale efficiencies. Japan is also set to launch its first fully autonomous commercial taxi service in Tokyo next year, initially with a small fleet before expanding to about 100 vehicles, through a collaboration between Alphabet's Waymo, Japanese taxi app operator GO, and taxi company Nihon Kotsu.
Amid these developments, a UK thinktank, Centre for British Progress, has urged the introduction of taxes on self-driving cars to mitigate potential congestion increases and job losses, particularly for hundreds of thousands of private hire drivers. They argue that this taxation could also provide a new revenue stream to replace dwindling fuel duty, which currently brings in about $27 billion annually. However, Wayve, a British tech firm, believes such taxes would "penalise the UK's most promising innovators." Apollo Go maintains that its autonomous driving technology currently complements existing transport options and will create new jobs in monitoring, testing, and maintaining these systems, as well as in data annotation.
