纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国的无人驾驶汽车安全吗我试乘了几辆

Images of the burned vehicle flew through the Chinese internet: An Aito M7 Plus electric sport utility vehicle, operated by an advanced assisted driving system, had crashed on a highway in Shanxi Province on April 26.

汽车失火的图片在中国的网络上迅速传播：4月26日，一辆由先进辅助驾驶系统操控的问界M7电动运动型多功能车在山西的一条高速公路上发生了撞车事故。

A woman who said her husband, brother and son had been killed posted videos online and pleaded for an investigation. All of her postings soon vanished, and she said she would not discuss it further.

一名女子表示，她在这起事故中失去了丈夫、弟弟和儿子，她在网上发布视频，要求进行调查。她的帖子很快就全部消失了，她说她不会再谈这个问题。

A Chinese business news outlet published a lengthy online investigation that questioned the safety of assisted driving systems. But that soon disappeared, too.

中国的一家商业媒体在网上发布了一个长篇调查报道，质疑辅助驾驶系统的安全性。但那篇文章很快也消失了。

State-run national media refrained from covering the crash for nine days after it happened. Then they posted a statement from Aito Car, a Chinese brand, that disavowed responsibility. The statement said that the car’s automated braking system had been designed for speeds up to 53 miles an hour, but the car was going 71 when it hit the back of a road maintenance vehicle.

在车祸发生后的九天时间里，官方媒体上不见报道。然后，它们发布了一份来自问界这个中国品牌的声明，否认对事故负有责任。声明称，车辆的自动刹车系统的工作范围最高时速为85公里，但这辆车在跟一辆道路养护车追尾时，时速达到115公里。

In the United States, a similar crash would probably have attracted considerable attention and possibly government or legal scrutiny. The main companies using computer-guided driving technology in the United States — Tesla, Waymo and Cruise — have all been subjects of high-profile safety investigations.

类似的车祸若是发生在美国，可能会引起相当大的关注，并可能受到政府或法律的审查。在美国，使用计算机辅助驾驶技术的几个大公司——特斯拉、Waymo和Cruise，都曾是备受关注的安全调查对象。

Waymo, which was started as Google’s self-driving division, has been testing driverless cars in Phoenix but faces a review by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. General Motors has resumed testing its Cruise robot taxis in Phoenix, after one of them in San Francisco dragged a pedestrian who had been knocked into its path by a human-driven car.

Waymo最初是谷歌的自动驾驶部门，一直在凤凰城测试无人驾驶汽车，但面临着美国运输部的审查。通用汽车在凤凰城恢复了对其Cruise机器人出租车的测试，此前在旧金山，该公司的一辆出租车曾拖拽一名被人类驾驶的汽车撞到在其行车路线上的行人。

Far less public and official scrutiny exists in China, where the government strongly backs the technology and tightly limits public information about accidents. The Ministry of Transport issued safety rules in December that are designed to foster a broad shift from people to computers in car driving.

在中国，公众和官方的监督要少得多，政府大力支持这项技术，并严格限制有关事故的公开信息。去年12月，交通运输部发布了安全规定，旨在促进汽车驾驶从人到电脑的广泛转变。

“The development environment of my country’s autonomous driving industry is becoming increasingly perfect, providing possibilities for the implementation of autonomous driving vehicles,” Wang Xianjin, the ministry’s deputy research director, told the official Xinhua news agency.

“我国自动驾驶产业发展环境日益完善，为自动驾驶汽车在运输服务领域落地应用提供了可能，”交通运输部科学研究院副院长王先进告诉官方的新华社。

The government has not issued statistics on safety incidents involving driverless cars or advanced assisted-driving technologies, like automated lane changes and obstacle avoidance on highways. Chinese car industry executives say these technologies are safe.

政府没有发布过涉及无人驾驶汽车或先进辅助驾驶技术的安全事故的统计数据，比如在高速公路上自动变道和躲避障碍物。中国汽车业的高管表示，这些技术是安全的。

The tech giant Baidu, which works with automakers, is testing its own fleet of driverless taxis in the city of Wuhan.

与汽车制造商合作的科技巨头百度正在武汉测试自己的无人驾驶出租车车队。

“Small scratches and dents are inevitable, but we have never had any major casualties,” Wang Yunpeng, president of Baidu’s intelligent driving business group, said in a speech.

百度智能驾驶事业群组总裁王云鹏在一次演讲中表示：“小刮小蹭在所难免，但没有出现过重大的人员伤亡事故。”

Over two days last month, I went for six rides in Baidu robot taxis in Wuhan. On one of the trips, with no safety driver ready to take over, the vehicle slowed nearly to a stop in fast-moving traffic on the upper deck of an expressway bridge high above the Yangtze River.

上个月的两天时间里，我在武汉乘坐了六次百度的机器人出租车。其中一次，没有配备安全驾驶员的自动驾驶出租车在一座长江大桥的上层公路桥快速行驶的车流中减速，几乎停了下来。

The car was trying to move from the center lane to the right lane, in preparation for an exit. The driver of a blue car in the right lane that was slightly behind my car began slowing to let my car in front of it. But my car also kept slowing. It started beeping its horn automatically to yield the right of way, instead of accelerating to enter the adjacent lane. Both cars kept slowing until they were barely moving.

这辆车正试图从中间车道并到右侧车道，准备在前方的出口出去。右边车道上一辆蓝色汽车的司机在我后面，开始放慢速度让我的车插到前面。但我的车也一直在减速。它开始自动鸣笛以示礼让，而不是加速进入相邻车道。两辆车都在减速，直到它们几乎停下来。

A third car, moving at highway speed, whipped around both cars. The robot taxi finally inched slowly into the right lane ahead of the blue car and then accelerated before taking the next exit from the bridge as planned.

第三辆车以跑高速的速度绕过了我们这两辆车。最终，机器人出租车缓缓从蓝色汽车前面插入右车道，然后加速，按计划从桥的下一个出口下桥。

I asked Baidu if it could look into what might have gone wrong. A spokeswoman said that the incident was an unusual circumstance and that drivers in Wuhan were seldom so willing to yield the right of way. She said the company would study the incident and consider whether to adjust the algorithms that control its driverless cars.

我问百度是否可以调查一下可能出了什么问题。一名发言人表示，这起事件是一种不寻常的情况，武汉的司机很少如此愿意让路。她说，公司将研究这起事件，并会考虑是否调整控制无人驾驶汽车的算法。

Many drivers in Wuhan are indeed fairly aggressive. I saw a different robot taxi stop at a pedestrian crossing to allow people to walk across the street, only for motorists to blow their horns impatiently.

武汉的很多司机开车确实相当猛。我看到另一辆机器人出租车停在人行横道前，让行人过马路时，很多司机不耐烦地按起了喇叭。

A year ago in Suzhou, I took a 10-minute journey in a robot taxi operated by a Chinese start-up. The taxi incorrectly made three emergency stops. But though my colleagues and I were thrown forward against our seatbelts, there were no collisions or injuries.

一年前在苏州，我乘坐了一辆由中国某初创企业运营的机器人出租车，行程10分钟。出租车三次无故紧急刹车。尽管我和我的同事身体前倾，但被安全带拉住，没有发生碰撞也没有人受伤。

A safety driver who was in the car with us explained that cautiously programmed software had wrongly identified pedestrians or parked cars as being about to enter the car’s path.

一位与我们同车的安全驾驶员解释说，经过谨慎编程的软件错误地将行人或停放在路边汽车识别为即将进入本车的车道。

Numerous government ministries and other agencies have claimed a role in the development of self-driving cars. But none have direct responsibility for regulating their safety.

许多政府部门和其他机构都声称在自动驾驶汽车的发展中发挥了作用。但没有一个部门对运输安全承担直接的监管责任。

Chinese companies have done extensive experiments to gather data on how autonomous cars interact with pedestrians, who are far more numerous in Chinese cities than in most American cities. At a former steel mill on the northwest outskirts of Beijing that is now a public park, Baidu is running a three-year experiment in which robot taxis slowly and carefully maneuver through crowds of people.

中国企业已经做了大量实验，以收集自动驾驶汽车如何与行人互动的数据，中国城市的行人数量远远超过大多数美国城市。在北京西北郊一家由钢铁厂改造的公园，百度正在这里进行一项为期三年的试验，让机器人出租车在人群中缓慢、小心地穿行。

An interagency task force led by the Ministry of Transport set a few broad rules for safety last December. Most robot taxis are no longer required to have safety drivers, but one remote operator must be assigned for every three vehicles. The task force has deferred more detailed rule making until the start of 2026.

去年12月，由交通部领导的跨部门工作组制定了一些广泛的安全规则。大多数机器人出租车不再需要配备安全驾驶员，但必须为每三辆车安排一名远程操作员。该工作组将更详细的规则制定推迟到2026年初。

Companies are trying to make as much progress as possible before that deadline, so they can influence the shape of the final rules. Whoever develops the most used system could reap a bonanza.

各企业正努力在最后期限之前取得尽可能多的进展，以便影响最终规则的制定。谁能开发出使用率最高的系统，谁就能获得丰厚的回报。

The cost of assisted driving and driverless systems lies mostly in developing them, not in manufacturing them. Whoever sells the most can spread development costs widely.

辅助驾驶和无人驾驶系统的成本主要在于开发，而不是制造。谁卖得多，谁就能摊薄开发成本。

Yet safety concerns persist in China. A news outlet in Hainan Province posted an article at the top of its website on June 7. The article described how a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan with an advanced assisted-driving system seemed to have accelerated out of control, killing one person and injuring three. Within three hours the article was fourth in a national ranking of most-viewed news items.

然而，安全问题在中国依然存在。6月7日，海南一家新闻媒体在网站置顶位置发布了一篇文章，描述了一辆配备先进辅助驾驶系统的小米SU7电动轿车似乎失控加速，造成一死三伤的事件。三小时内，这篇文章在全国浏览量最高的新闻排名中位列第四。

Xiaomi soon issued a statement saying there was nothing wrong with the car that crashed. The article suggesting otherwise then disappeared from China’s internet, except for a few screenshots taken by internet users.

小米很快发表声明称，肇事车辆没有任何问题。那篇暗示情况并非如此的文章随后从中国互联网上消失了，能找到的只剩互联网用户的几张截图。