Driving Schools in China using RobotCoach to save 95% operation costs
Do you have robot coaches for driving schools?
When learning to drive, if you meet a robot coach, what will be your first reaction? The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has brought the scenes in science fiction movies into reality.
In fact, robot coaches do not have real robots as coaches. Instead, they load a set of intelligent systems on a coaching vehicle, and teach students through the system’s voice, electronic display and other devices. The trainees do not need to be accompanied by a trainer. They only need to independently select the teaching mode and training module on the operation display platform of the teaching vehicle. The robot trainer can strictly execute the training commands, collect trainees' training data throughout the process, and supervise the training process.
Once an unsafe situation occurs during the training process, the robot instructor will immediately activate the two-circuit closed-loop safety guarantee and risk system to automatically avoid and cut off various dangerous driving behaviors of the students to ensure the safety of training.
Now, more and more driving schools have begun to introduce robot coaches. Compared with traditional manual coaches, robot coaches have obvious advantages, with high intelligence and safety.
Since 2016, after Yixian Technology released version 1.0 of the robot coach, the robot coach series products have undergone major product iterations every year, and continuously achieve advanced functions and intelligent upgrades.
On September 16, Yixian Technology released version 5.0 of Robot Trainer. This version further implements functional iteration and upgrade on the basis of the original version.
According to Yixian Technology, at present, Yixian Robot Trainer has been able to completely replace manual coaches and can adapt to all coach models on the market. Robot Coach 5.0 can fully support unmanned driving in the training field, and can help new students with zero foundation to carry out intelligent demonstration teaching based on fully automatic driving mode; version 5.0 also strengthens absolute safety at 40 kilometers per hour, bringing students the closest to society The actual combat scene training experience of the road driving environment; it can also gain insight into the students' driving style and deep-level problems in the driving behavior, and feedback to the students in real time; there are also improvements and improvements in the human-machine voice interaction system, appearance design, etc.
In addition, Robot Coach version 5.0 also empowers driving training institutions in five dimensions. In short, it can save money, increase efficiency, trainees have a good experience, have after-sales service, and can effectively accumulate and use digital resources.
Specifically, money can be saved mainly in three aspects. A coach can bring 30+ robot coaches, which can save 95% of the labor cost of the driving school every year; the robot coach can also bring 360-degree safety protection without dead ends. Each year, it can reduce vehicle collision maintenance costs for driving schools by about 10,000 yuan; at the same time, compared with traditional manual coaches, robot coaches have their own traffic, which can bring publicity effects and save marketing costs for driving schools.
It can increase efficiency mainly in three aspects. First, it can increase the pass rate. Compared with manual coaches, the pass rate can be increased by an average of 10.88%; second is the increase in the number of students. In 2019, Yixian Robot Coach successfully helped the driving school achieve 32% Increase in students; again, it can improve the utilization rate of the venue, fully allocate the time for students to learn to drive, and realize the efficient use of the driving school.
The trainees have a good experience. From the hardware point of view, the trainer's accessories and materials will be strictly controlled. During the learning process, the machine trainer can completely replace the manual trainer, and can also realize personalized teaching based on the trainee's driving behavior data.
It is worth mentioning that during this year’s epidemic, Yixian’s robot coach was also the only robot coach to take the lead in resuming work with advantages such as “single bicycle”, “zero contact throughout” and “360-degree intelligent safety protection”, thereby minimizing the impact of the epidemic loss.
In terms of after-sales service, the robot coach is equipped with a 7×24-hour after-sales response mechanism. Through the setting of the regional after-sales center, a quick response can be achieved within 5 minutes, and online fault diagnosis and resolution within 30 minutes; A specialist will be sent to the site for maintenance within 24 hours.
Obviously, while robot coaches can meet the needs of driving training services, in terms of the accumulation and use of digital resources, they can realize digital assetization through deep learning and cloud computing technologies in the later stage, and optimize the configuration from service processes to management resources. From digital marketing to the realization of streaming media links and word-of-mouth communication, etc., to help driving training institutions realize digital transformation.
Since the launch of Yixian Robot Coach, the number of signed driving schools has reached 136, providing 5630 units for delivery and operation. In addition to the large-scale use of driving schools such as Dongfang Fashion and Shanghai Jietong, the products have been radiated all over the country. In addition, Yi Xian robot coaches have also received close attention from South Korea, Vietnam and other driving training institutions. With the gradual maturity of products, Yi Xian is actively deploying overseas business.
Combined with his more than 20 years of driving training experience, Ma Hong, the founder of Yixian Technology, said in an interview with Titanium Media that in Yixian's overall strategic layout and planning, robot coaching is indeed a highlight, but it is only part of the business. .
As we all know, the established business model of China's driving training industry is already quite difficult. Most driving schools continue to lose money and are now entering a new reshuffle and adjustment period. This difficult period will inevitably give birth to new things in the industry. Robot coaching is one of the new things. However, it cannot solve all the problems of the driving training industry, it is only a manifestation of the empowerment of technology to the driving training industry.
Ma Hong said that the original intention and positioning of Yixian Technology is to continue to empower driving training institutions. Robot coaches are not enough. Robot coaches should be used as an entrance to conduct business layout around digital intelligent driving training. Based on digital precipitation to drive driving training institutions to achieve process management, innovate marketing functions, and optimize internal resource allocation; on the other hand, Yixian Technology needs to face the digital future, embed driving training industry into digital intelligent scenes, and focus on autonomous driving services To do service, this is a longer-term vision.
As for the application and landing of artificial intelligence in the driving training industry, robot coaches have opened a channel for digitalization and intelligence in the driving training industry. The entire chain of artificial intelligence is embedded and spawned a new driving training model change, which requires the accumulation of digital assets, Ma Hong I believe that the next most important thing is to carry out process innovation around the student experience service and provide a more personalized learning and driving program. Then there is the intelligent management of driving school assets, providing intelligent detection around driving training vehicles, and establishing an intelligent detection system according to the performance of the vehicle to achieve performance optimization and even failure prediction, thereby reducing related costs.
Compared with other industries, the application of artificial intelligence in the driving training industry initially brought the challenge to Yixian Technology from the realization of technology. Yixian Technology’s Robot Coach 1.0 version went through three years of technical exploration and incubation before it came out in 2016.
"This is a long and difficult journey. Take the road that no one else has walked, even bite the bullet and move forward in the dark. After having the prototype, I found that there is a galaxy between the realization and the application." Ma Hong recalled the initial stage Said to Titanium Media during his experience.
After version 1.0, Yixian Technology conducted tests nationwide. In order to bring customers a good experience, it sacrificed a driving school for trial and error. Until today, after the robot coach of Yixian Technology can truly realize the artificial coaching, Yixian Technology began to build a sales team for promotion.
According to Ma Hong’s introduction to Titanium Media, there are no technical challenges for robot coaches, and policy support is gradually being obtained. The current challenge may still be the challenge of the mental model. For the driving training industry, robot coaching is a new thing. Many people are still in the wait-and-see and trial stage. New technologies and new models need to have a process of acceptance.
Another challenge may come from imitating and plagiarizing technology. Ma Hong pointed out that the current business environment is still not friendly to technology research and development. What is more worried is that unfair competition methods damage the ecology of the entire industry, such as some ultra-low prices. Competitors cannot achieve the established functions, but they fool customers to install and replace them. Especially now that robot coaches are a new thing, these practices will harm the healthy development of the industry.
With the advent of autonomous driving technology, many people think that driving licenses will no longer be required in the future. In this regard, Ma Hong told Titanium Media that the current autonomous driving technology is still in its infancy, but the development will be extremely rapid and it will be able to achieve the original The control of functions is the sharing of control rights between cars and people, including the "5G Cloud Drive" just released by Baidu, which helps self-driving cars get out of trouble on-site through cloud driver collaboration. In essence, it is still difficult for automatic driving technology to achieve complete driving control.
Ma Hong believes that the impact of autonomous driving technology on the driving training industry, if the driver’s license is no longer required, it must be a complete overturn of the existing driving training model. Any industry is constantly evolving with the progress of the times and technology, and it depends on whether it can adapt to potential energy, carry out self-innovation, and embed it in the future world.