Didi: Shared mobility reduces traffic congestion

Many cities in China suffer from traffic congestion, and Didi Chuxing, the world's largest ride-hailing service provider, said shared mobility is a key factor in helping with the problem.

Didi said shared mobility accounts for less than 3 percent of the total addressable mobility needs in the country, but it plans to raise the figure to 8 percent by 2022 and 30 percent by 2030.

Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of Didi, said on Monday, "Shared intelligent mobility is the optimum solution for the future of transportation."

He cited the example of Beijing, saying that the road length has doubled in the past 20 years, while the number of private cars has surged tenfold.

Didi statistics show that there are around 4.67 million vehicles in the capital city, however there are only 3.82 million parking spaces.

"So if one doesn't have to own a car, we can have better travel experience, especially with the continued development of autonomous driving and AI technology," Cheng said.

Cheng made the remarks as Didi unveiled a ride-hailing vehicle customized by Chinese carmaker BYD on Monday.

The car, called D1, has been improved in terms of design, in-car human-computer interaction, internet of vehicles technologies and other things that drivers and passengers are concerned about.

Yang Jun, vice-president of DiDi, called D1 a data driven car.

"It is a ground-breaking vehicle that enables data connection between automakers and the ride-hailing platform. Powered by data, D1 is defined by usage scenarios and is a purpose-built vehicle for both drivers and riders."

Didi has more than 31 million vehicles registered on its platform, 550 million registered passengers, and carries out over 60 million rides a day.

For example, the customized model allows the driver to take an order by pushing a button on the car, instead of clicking on a mobile phone, as they have been doing worldwide, and the passenger can have the air conditioner adjusted via their mobile phone before the car's arrival.

Cheng said the model, which features Level 2 autonomous functions, is not the ultimate one in Didi's blueprint.

He said the model will be updated around every 18 months and the company's latest in-house autonomous driving technology will be integrated into later versions.

Didi's autonomous driving unit was set up in 2016. It has acquired public road testing licenses in cities including Beijing and Shanghai as well as California in the United States.

Cheng said there will be more than 1 million tailor-made vehicles on its platform by 2025 and the vehicles will be driverless by 2030.

Didi had been committed to optimizing software but in the next 10 years, it will focus on both software and hardware and update its products and services, he said.