Roboy: Auto Disruption Rises in the East

If you are looking for disruptive innovation in the automotive industry it may be time to look East rather than West (to Silicon Valley). While the U.S. innovation hub has demonstrated great skill at launching expensive vehicles capable of disrupting the industry (think the Google car with its $70K LIDAR gantry or the $100K Tesla Model S), Chinese cities and rural areas are beginning to see an upswell in micro EVs that are buzzing around beneath the radar of regulators and zooming in at price points affordable to the masses.

These micro EVs are appealing as disruptors because they have inspired anxiety among government regulators. The Chinese government offers substantial incentives to stimulate the purchase and adoption of more expensive EVs (think $50,000+) from mainstream auto makers such as BYD.

But more expensive EVs are not helping the government reach its goal of seeing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of EVs on the road. So, for now, regulators are looking the other way, in spite of the fact that many of the current crop of micro EV makers are using decidedly un-green lead acid batteries. (Reuters - https://tinyurl.com/7jxxkwo - Mini electric cars fill gap in China as official EVs sputter).

Enter Roboy. At the First International Forum on Intelligent Vehicles last weekend in Chengdu, China, one such micro EV candidate, Roboy, was shown off in videos and a presentation by a professor from the Research Center of Zhejiang University. (Video of self-driving Roboy in operation: https://tinyurl.com/mo3obsa)

Roboy was originally conceived as an EV, much like the cheap (<$5,000) vehicles widely made and sold in rural areas, but the Zhejiang University team went further, configuring their car for autonomous operation and using Lithium ion technology.

The Roboy micro car is cheap and capable of unmanned operation. It is targeted at electric car rental applications for use in public areas, but limited range (55Km) and speed (25Km). The vehicles have a narrow body, enabling tandem seating for two, and can be parked in a bike position. (I know what you are thinking - golf courses and Palm Springs, CA.) They are definitely not suited to suburban or inter-urban driving scenarios.

The vehicles have an open “easy access” design, single brake pedal/throttle, and are meant for “scenic tours, urban patrolling or public rental.” The cars also feature voice control but are notable more for what is absent including, on some models, doors, windshield wipers, or a stereo.

The unmanned version of the Roboy uses two single-line scanning radar for road identification and a monocular camera for traffic sign recognition. The architecture includes a fusion CANbus, Ethernet, WI-FI vehicle network. The car is also equipped with GPS and GPRS connectivity.

Roboy is but one example of a Vesuvian eruption of automotive innovation in China. At first glance it seems utterly silly and unworthy of consideration as a serious means of transportation. But as a low-cost means of getting around urban or rural areas it makes sense. And the fact that it aggravates regulators – qualifying as more of a four-wheel electric bicycle than a car – is appealing in itself.

I look at Roboy as a kind of Wal-Mart version of the Google car but with electric power. And while Google may be looking at a licensing model to work from high cost toward low cost, I like the idea of starting cheap and working up.