纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国全球最大的无人驾驶试验场

The world’s largest experiment in driverless cars is underway on the busy streets of Wuhan, a city in central China with 11 million people, 4.5 million cars, eight-lane expressways and towering bridges over the muddy waters of the Yangtze River.

世界上最大的无人驾驶汽车试验正在武汉繁忙的街道上进行。这座位于中国中部的城市拥有1100万人口、450万辆汽车、八车道高速公路和横跨在长江浑浊水面上的桥梁。

A fleet of 500 taxis navigated by computers, often with no safety drivers in them for backup, buzz around. The company that operates them, the tech giant Baidu, said last month that it would add a further 1,000 of the so-called robot taxis in Wuhan.

一个由500辆出租车组成的车队由电脑导航，在街头穿梭，通常没有安全驾驶员作为后备。运营这些出租车的科技巨头百度上个月表示，将在武汉再增加1000辆所谓的机器人出租车。

Across China, 16 or more cities have allowed companies to test driverless vehicles on public roads, and at least 19 Chinese automakers and their suppliers are competing to establish global leadership in the field. No other country is moving as aggressively.

在中国，已经有至少16座城市允许公司在公共道路上测试无人驾驶汽车，至少有19家中国汽车制造商及其供应商正竞相在该领域建立全球领导地位。没有哪个国家在采取如此激进的行动。

The government is providing the companies significant help. In addition to cities designating on-road testing areas for robot taxis, censors are limiting online discussion of safety incidents and crashes to restrain public fears about the nascent technology.

政府正在为这些公司提供大量帮助。除了在城市中为机器人出租车划定道路测试区域外，审查机构还限制网上对安全事故和撞车事故的讨论，以抑制公众对这项新兴技术的担忧。

Surveys by J.D. Power, an automotive consulting firm, found that Chinese drivers are more willing than Americans to trust computers to guide their cars.

汽车咨询公司JD Power的调查发现，中国司机比美国人更愿意相信电脑能引导他们的汽车。

“I think there’s no need to worry too much about safety — it must have passed safety approval,” said Zhang Ming, the owner of a small grocery store near Wuhan’s Qingchuan Pavilion, where many Baidu robot taxis stop.

“我觉得现在既然推出，应该是经过审批的，所以我觉得安全方面应该不用太担心，”武汉晴川阁附近一家小杂货店的老板张明（音）说，很多百度机器人出租车在这里停靠。

Another reason for China’s lead in the development of driverless cars is its strict and ever-tightening control of data. Chinese companies set up crucial research facilities in the United States and Europe and sent the results back home. But any research in China is not allowed to leave the country. As a result, it’s difficult for foreign carmakers to use what they learn in China for cars they sell in other countries.

中国在无人驾驶汽车发展方面处于领先地位的另一个原因是对数据的严格控制。中国公司在美国和欧洲建立了重要的研究设施，并将研究成果送回国内。但在中国进行的任何研究都不允许离开中国。因此，外国汽车制造商很难将他们在中国学到的东西用于在其他国家销售的汽车。

Then there are the safety issues. As China charges ahead, companies and regulators elsewhere have become more cautious.

还有安全问题。在中国快速发展的同时，其他地方的企业和监管机构变得更加谨慎。

The Cruise robot taxi service of General Motors halted service in the United States last fall after one of its cars in San Francisco hit and dragged a pedestrian who had been knocked into its path by a human driver. California regulators later suspended the company’s state license. Cruise has resumed limited testing in Phoenix.

去年秋天，通用汽车的Cruise机器人出租车服务停止了在美国的服务，原因是该公司的一辆汽车在旧金山撞倒并拖拽了一名被人类司机撞到车道上的行人。加州监管机构随后吊销了该公司的州执照。Cruise已在凤凰城恢复了有限的测试。

Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, is testing more than 200 self-driving cars in the Phoenix suburbs and in San Francisco, as well as nearly 50 in Los Angeles and in Austin, Texas. Waymo was notified twice by federal regulators last month that they were reviewing its safety.

前身是谷歌自动驾驶汽车部门的Waymo公司，目前正在凤凰城郊区和旧金山测试200多辆自动驾驶汽车，在洛杉矶和得克萨斯州奥斯汀测试近50辆。上个月，联邦监管机构两次通知Waymo正在审查其安全性。

Ford and Volkswagen shut down their robot taxi joint venture, Argo AI, two years ago, but both companies are still developing advanced assisted driving systems.

两年前，福特和大众关闭了他们的机器人出租车合资企业Argo AI，但两家公司仍在开发先进的辅助驾驶系统。

Last fall, Japan suspended its test of driverless golf carts that travel seven miles per hour after one of them hit the pedal of a parked bicycle. No one was injured. The testing resumed in March.

去年秋天，日本暂停了时速约11公里的无人驾驶高尔夫球车的测试，因为其中一辆高尔夫球车撞上了一辆停放的自行车的踏板。无人受伤。测试于3月恢复。

No company has made bigger bets on computer-guided driving than the American automaker Tesla. But its Autopilot system for highway driving, which it introduced in 2014, and its new Full Self-Driving system, for street and highway driving, are not truly driverless. Motorists are required to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel.

在计算机引导驾驶方面，没有哪家公司比美国汽车制造商特斯拉的赌注更大。但它在2014年推出的用于高速公路驾驶的Autopilot系统，以及用于街道和高速公路驾驶的Full Self-Driving系统，都不是真正的无人驾驶。驾驶者必须目视道路，手握方向盘。

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, announced on April 5 a “Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8.”

但特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克在4月5日宣布，“特斯拉机器人出租车将于8月8日推出”。

Many Chinese makers of electric cars are introducing advanced assisted driving features on their mass-production cars.

许多中国电动汽车制造商正在量产汽车上引入先进的辅助驾驶功能。

On June 4, Beijing authorized nine Chinese automakers — including Nio, BYD and SAIC Motor — to begin tests of advanced assisted driving systems that go beyond Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. At least initially, the tests will be done in restricted areas, not on public roads.

6月4日，北京授权九家中国汽车制造商——包括蔚来、比亚迪和上汽——开始测试先进的辅助驾驶系统，超越特斯拉的全自动驾驶。至少在最初阶段，测试将在限制区域进行，而不是在公共道路上。

Baidu and Huawei, the electronics giant, are supplying part or all of these automated systems to many Chinese automakers. Baidu also has a joint venture with Zhejiang Geely, called Jiyue, to make robot taxis.

百度和电子巨头华为正在为许多中国汽车制造商提供部分或完全自动化系统。百度还与浙江吉利成立了一家名为极越的合资企业，生产机器人出租车。

The China Society of Automotive Engineers forecasts that 20 percent of the cars sold in China in 2030 will be completely driverless and that another 70 percent will have advanced assisted driving technology.

中国汽车工程学会预测，到2030年，在中国销售的汽车中，20%将是完全无人驾驶汽车，另外70%将采用先进的辅助驾驶技术。

Predicting the future popularity of driverless cars in the United States is difficult because it depends on how quickly carmakers switch to electric vehicles. Driverless technology works much better with battery electric cars than with gasoline-powered cars or most hybrid gasoline-electric cars. Electric motors can increase or decrease power with less of a lag and in more finely controlled increments.

预测无人驾驶汽车未来在美国的普及程度是很困难的，因为这取决于汽车制造商转向电动汽车的速度。与汽油动力汽车或大多数油电混合动力汽车相比，无人驾驶技术在电池电动汽车上的效果要好得多。电动机增减功率的滞后时间更短，控制也更精细。

In China, battery electric cars represent about 25 percent of the market, compared with 7 percent in the United States.

在中国，纯电动汽车约占市场份额的25%，而在美国，这一比例为7%。

As with many technologies, including electric car batteries and solar panels, Chinese companies started developing driverless cars by studying American inventions, but then leaped forward in commercializing them. In the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, more than a dozen Chinese firms set up autonomous driving research centers in California, mainly in Silicon Valley. Some, like Baidu, hired hundreds of software engineers. They obtained permission from the California Department of Transportation to test cars on public roads.

就像电动汽车电池和太阳能电池板等许多技术一样，中国公司通过研究美国的发明开始开发无人驾驶汽车，但随后又在商业化方面取得飞跃。在新冠疫情暴发前的几年里，十几家中国公司在加州（主要是硅谷）建立了自动驾驶研究中心。一些公司，比如百度，雇佣了数百名软件工程师。他们获得了加州交通部的许可，可以在公共道路上测试汽车。

These companies moved most of their research to China during the pandemic, when Beijing sealed the country’s borders but allowed key researchers to return. They have continued to work in China.

这些公司在疫情期间将大部分研究转移到中国，当时北京封锁了中国边境，但允许关键研究人员回国。他们继续在中国工作。

“If you take California out of the equation, China’s autonomous driving industry would be nowhere near where it is now,” said Michael Dunne, a San Diego automotive consultant who specializes in China.

“如果把加州排除在外，中国的自动驾驶行业将远不及现在的水平，”专门研究中国问题的圣地亚哥汽车顾问迈克尔·邓恩说。

China has been a big market for Tesla and its advanced assisted driving technologies, like Autopilot. But Beijing is now cracking down on any movement of this data out of China.

中国一直是特斯拉及其Autopilot等先进辅助驾驶技术的巨大市场。但北京现在正在打击任何将这些数据转移到国外的行为。

Mr. Musk visited Beijing in April to seek approval for his company to offer Full Self-Driving in China. He reached deals to keep in China any data gathered in the country, and to obtain high-resolution maps of Chinese roads through an agreement with Baidu.

今年4月，马斯克访问北京，寻求批准其公司在中国提供全自动驾驶服务。他达成了将在中国收集的所有数据保留在中国的协议，并通过与百度达成协议，获得中国道路的高分辨率地图。

China does not allow foreign companies to have direct access to high-resolution maps, which are crucial to driverless systems.

中国不允许外国公司直接获取对无人驾驶系统至关重要的高分辨率地图。

Assisted driving or driverless cars use tiny cameras mounted on their exteriors, or in some cases miniature laser systems, to collect information. Most of that data is processed by the car’s computers, which make decisions on steering and vehicle speed.

辅助驾驶或无人驾驶汽车使用安装在其外部的微型摄像头，或者在某些情况下使用微型激光系统来收集信息。这些数据大部分由汽车的计算机处理，由计算机决定转向和车速。

Although most of the data from cameras and lasers on cars is not uploaded to the carmakers, the potential for tracking people and mapping sensitive locations has troubled security experts.

尽管来自汽车上的摄像头和激光的大部分数据没有上传到汽车制造商，但它们对人员进行追踪和绘制敏感位置地图的潜力，令安全专家感到困扰。

Europe and the United States still allow manufacturers to send driving data to China, but that may change. Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, said last month that the United States would propose rules this fall to regulate cars that were electronically linked to China. Europe has also begun studying the issue.

欧洲和美国仍然允许制造商向中国发送驾驶数据，但这种情况可能会改变。美国商务部长雷蒙多上月表示，美国将在今年秋天提出规则，对与中国有电子连接的汽车进行监管。欧洲也开始研究这个问题。

Baidu believes it has a three- to five-year lead over Tesla in Chinese cities like Wuhan, according to Wang Yunpeng, president of Baidu’s intelligent driving business group. By operating fully driverless cars in these places, Baidu has learned how the traffic works, block by block, he said in a speech last month.

百度智能驾驶事业群负责人王云鹏表示，百度认为，在武汉等中国城市，它比特斯拉领先三到五年。他在上个月的演讲中说，通过在这些地方运行完全无人驾驶汽车，百度已经一个街区一个街区地了解了交通状况。

From steamy coastal ports in southeastern China like Shenzhen and Fuzhou to metropolises in the mountains of western China, like Chongqing and Chengdu, cities across China are encouraging broad experimentation.

从深圳和福州等东南部潮湿的沿海港口，到重庆和成都等西部山区的大都市，中国各地的城市都在鼓励广泛的试验。