By Liza Lin in Shanghai and Tim Higgins in San Francisco
As auto makers such as General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.
along with tech companies including Google and Apple Inc. rush to
develop self-driving vehicles or the software behind them, the
world's largest auto market--China--is creating roadblocks.
Self-driving cars need detailed maps to help them discern their
exact location, navigate tricky intersections and avoid fixed
objects like buildings. But China limits the amount of mapping that
can be done by foreign companies, citing national security
concerns.
Global car makers already need to partner with a local company
to open factories in China, but some are skeptical they will be
able to find a way to operate their autonomous-car software in
China because of the mapping restrictions.
Brian McClendon, an industry pioneer who helped created Google
Maps and later headed up Uber Technologies Inc.'s self-driving
effort, said he doubted U.S. software would ever be adopted for
self-driving cars in China.
"We're going to have a bifurcated market for self-driving--China
will do China and the U.S. will do U.S. and the rest of the world
will quickly choose and do one or the other," said Mr. McClendon,
now a research professor at the University of Kansas.
To secure turn-by-turn navigation maps, foreign car makers
currently work with Chinese mapping companies. But auto makers and
tech firms may have reasons to hesitate before working with a
third-party map provider in China on the high-definition maps
needed by autonomous cars.
James Wu, co-founder of U.S. mapping startup DeepMap Inc., who
formerly worked at Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Apple and China's Baidu
Inc., said ownership of mapping data is crucial in self-driving
cars.
"If a non-Chinese company works with a Chinese local map company
with a license, then who owns the data? Who would be responsible
for safety issues, privacy issues, security issues associated with
the map data? It is a pretty messy problem to sort out," Mr. Wu
said.
GM, Apple and Ford declined to comment on the issue of mapping
data in China. Alphabet's autonomous-driving unit, Waymo, didn't
reply to an email seeking comment.
Earlier this year, Li Shufu, founder of Geely Automotive, the
Chinese auto maker that owns Volvo, urged the National Committee of
the People's Political Consultative Conference to relax the mapping
barriers, which he cautioned could hurt the country's development
of self-driving vehicles.
Unless his call is heeded, foreign tech and car companies will
need to work with one of 13 Chinese companies licensed by the
government for surveying and mapping. The three largest are Baidu,
the AutoNavi unit of Alibaba Group Holding, and NavInfo Co., which
is backed by Tencent Holdings.
German auto supplier Robert Bosch GmbH, for example, announced a
partnership this spring with Chinese mapping firms including Baidu
and AutoNavi to co-operate on high-definition maps there.
"The market with regards to maps in China is quite strongly
regulated, which is different from other countries," said Renaud
Bonhomme, director of advanced innovation and system engineering
with a Robert Bosch unit in China.
South Korea's Hyundai Motors also announced recently it would
use Baidu's maps in its vehicles sold in China, and said it is
exploring joint efforts into autonomous driving technologies with
the Beijing-based company. Baidu claims its high-definition maps
have collected data from 300,000 kilometers of highway in
China.
The Chinese companies are considered to be far behind Waymo,
which launched in 2009 and has already chalked up more than three
million miles of autonomous driving on public roads in the U.S.
Baidu started its autonomous-driving research in 2014 and claims
its high-definition maps have collected data from just 300,000
kilometers of China's nearly 5 million kilometers of roads.
German mapping provider HERE, owned by automakers Audi, BMW and
Daimler, will bring its maps to China after receiving investment
and forming a 50-50 joint venture with Navinfo last December.
Meantime, GM, Volvo and Daimler are in talks about possibly
using high-definition mapping technology in China from Autonavi,
according to a person familiar with the situation.
Mapping restrictions play out in a small scale today with
Google's connected car platform Android Auto. Despite a rollout in
31 markets world-wide, Google's platform, which connects smartphone
applications to a car's dashboard, isn't available in China.
Google's services, including Google Maps, are restricted by
China regulators, resulting in a bad user experience for Chinese
consumers, said Colin Bird, a senior analyst at IHS Automotive.
The California-based technology giant currently has only a local
partnership to provided maps for desktop computers in China, and
gaining permission to expand that to smartphones, cars and other
uses could be problematic given the company's stormy departure in
2010 over government censorship of its search engine.
Further hurdles await foreign software and car companies beyond
maps. They are likely to face difficulty gaining approval to
conduct test drives in the country, as the government will seek to
support its domestic enterprises, said Li Zhishan, an auto
technology analyst at Analysys in Beijing.
Industry watchers say the situation is another reminder of the
dilemma facing Western countries: China is too big to ignore, but
there is always a price for a seat at the table.
"Once again, China uses leverage to lock in a competitive
advantage, and can do so because they know everyone wants market
access," said Michael Dunne, president of Hong Kong-based
investment advisory firm Dunne Automotive.
Mike Colias in Detroit and
Wang Fanfan
in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to Liza Lin at Liza.Lin@wsj.com and Tim Higgins at
Tim.Higgins@WSJ.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 13, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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