For Wang, who is also a driver, sitting in an autonomous car is no more stressful than driving on a road full of new drivers, because "driverless cars are definitely safer than human drivers".
Cui Rui, co-founder of Jiewo, an app that allows people to share private buses, sees plenty of opportunities in self-driving buses. "In the initial stages, it is more likely that self-driving technologies will be used on vehicles that travel along fixed routes, which will reduce management challenges and offer improved safety," he said.
Wang and Cui both believe that the commercial vehicle sector will be the first testing ground for driverless cars because cab companies are more sensitive to costs－especially labor costs－than individual car buyers.
"Self-driving represents the future, although its commercialization could be difficult at the beginning. If there were some major accidents in the first few years, it would slow down the development of the whole industry," Wang said.
The driving force behind the moves to develop driverless cars, irrespective of cost, is the potential profit to be made from China's massive auto market.
A survey by Boston Consulting Group in April last year showed that China will soon corner more than 25 percent of the driverless car market, which is expected to hit 12 million units globally by 2035.
Meanwhile, a recent report by Roland Berger, a global strategy consultancy, showed that Chinese car owners are much more open to unmanned cars than Europeans and people in the U.S..
As many as 96 percent of Chinese drivers stating that they would consider an autonomous vehicle for almost all everyday driving, whereas in the U.S. and Germany, the figure was 58 percent.
"Chinese people are probably the world's most adventurous consumers－they are always ready to try new things. Just look at how smartphones swept the country overnight and you can predict what will happen to the market for autonomous cars," said Wang Yong, founder of VVpinche, a cab-hailing company in Beijing based on the model popularized by Uber and Didi Chuxing.
For Wang, who is also a driver, sitting in an autonomous car is no more stressful than driving on a road full of new drivers, because "driverless cars are definitely safer than human drivers".
Cui Rui, co-founder of Jiewo, an app that allows people to share private buses, sees plenty of opportunities in self-driving buses. "In the initial stages, it is more likely that self-driving technologies will be used on vehicles that travel along fixed routes, which will reduce management challenges and offer improved safety," he said.
Wang and Cui both believe that the commercial vehicle sector will be the first testing ground for driverless cars because cab companies are more sensitive to costs－especially labor costs－than individual car buyers.
"Self-driving represents the future, although its commercialization could be difficult at the beginning. If there were some major accidents in the first few years, it would slow down the development of the whole industry," Wang said.
What concerns Wang is the universal problem with replacing human drivers with robots: a driverless car can avoid hitting other objects, but it cannot stop a manually driven car from crashing into it. If an accident occurs－and it happened a lot during Google's road tests, according to the company's own accounts－it will be difficult to determine who bears responsibility.
The debate about whether manufacturers should shoulder the liability raged for several years, hindering the commercialization of driverless cars. The problem was solved last year, when Volvo, Google and Mercedes-Benz announced that they will accept full liability if their autonomous vehicles cause a collision.
Although the announcement cleared the air with regard to liability, an overall lack of rules and regulations for autonomous cars is frustrating industry insiders.
"The U.S. risks losing its leading position due to the lack of federal guidelines for the testing and certification of autonomous vehicles," said Hakan Samuelsson, the CEO of Volvo in an October report in Digitaltrends, a technology news and information website.
"Europe has suffered to some extent by having a patchwork of rules and regulations. It would be a shame if the U.S. took a similar path," he said.
After years of lobbying by automakers, four U.S. states－California, Nevada, Florida and Michigan－have decided allow autonomous vehicles to be tested on public roads.
Despite being a latecomer in the field, Chinese decision makers seem to be much more active in giving green lights.
In November, Shanghai opened a 3.6 km section of road for testing self-driving vehicles－the first such zone in China. A short time later, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved similar test areas in the municipalities of Beijing and Chongqing and in the provinces of Hebei and Zhejiang.
At the 2016 Beijing Autonomous Driving Panel Debate in April, a senior official at the Ministry of Transport said the country is conducting preliminary studies into an intelligent transportation-control network and a pilot program will be undertaken in the near future.
"The government is positive, but cautious, about the development of the technologies. The country is establishing a specialized testing environment," said Wang Xiaojing, chief engineer at the ministry's Institute of Highway Research.
According to Yu, from ResearchInChina, official approval and encouragement could make all the difference for homegrown auto companies: "In China, the policy problem could be solved fairly easily if the government decided to develop the industry. That could give Chinese companies a real advantage."
