China moves into passing lane with self-driving regs

In the race to be a global leader in self-driving cars, China is moving to overtake the current U.S. and European front runners with a new regulatory structure that could significantly open up its vast network of roads and streets.

Australia’s SBS reports that China is preparing a draft regulatory framework on self-driving cars that could be ready as early as this year. The regulations are expected to pave the way for autonomous vehicles that will appear on China’s highways in three to five years, and then in Chinese cities by 2025, according to the chair of the committee preparing the framework Li Keqiang.

China’s powerful Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is backing the committee tasked with developing the draft framework that will feature a unified regulatory structure for the whole country. Such a holistic regulatory framework could prove highly advantageous compared to the current patchwork of U.S. state standards and laws for self-driving cars. The plan will include infrastructure and regulatory guidelines as well as technical standards that will see autonomous vehicles communicating in a common language. The committee chair sees this unified approach to the burgeoning technology as giving China an advantage that could allow it to leapfrog its Western competitors to a much quicker rollout of self-driving cars.

“If we can convince the government that every company, every car on the road must use this (single standard) … then there is a chance China can beat the rest of the world” to broad integration of autonomous vehicles, said the leader of Chongqing Changan Automobile’s autonomous drive program Li Yusheng.

China can centralize its rule-making

Unlike the U.S. and other Western markets that face chaotic regulatory regimes for self-driving cars, China’s new top-down approach to developing a unified regulatory framework could give it a significant competitive edge. Multinational car-makers, who up until now have largely developed industry standards among themselves in the vacuum of universal regulations, could soon have a harmonized playbook to tackle the self-driving car market in China.

And that market is going to be a global game changer.

China is currently the world’s largest automobile market and, according to Boston Consulting, in 20 years it will be the largest market for autonomous vehicle features, encompassing at least 25% of demand worldwide.

Part of China’s autonomous vehicle growth potential is related to the population being more open to self-driving cars in their daily life than western countries. A 2015 study found that 75% of Chinese residents would be comfortable using an autonomous vehicle, compared to just 50% of U.S. people surveyed.

As well, widespread integration of self-driving cars could address several of China’s quality of life problems, such as crippling air pollution, traffic congestion and erratic driving that sees more than 200,000 people die in road accidents each year.

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China’s LeEco unveils its own concept self-driving electric car

China’s LeEco unveiled its own self-driving electric car concept at a Beijing press conferenceearlier today, adding to the laundry list of products currently produced by the “Netflix of China”.

LeEco chief executive Jia Yueting demoed some of the self-driving capabilities at the event, including driving and parking. Yueting controlled the car through voice commands on a mobile device, a different approach to Google and Tesla that still use a touch interface.

See Also: Baidu wants self-driving cars on the roads by 2018

The car, named the LeSee, is still in concept stage, as far as we can tell. Yueting made no mention of specifications or price, but in the video teaser we got to see rear suicide doors and back seats that change shape to fit passengers bodies. Touchscreens are also fitted in the back seats, and Yueting said the car will feature face recognition and self-learning, though he did not demo this at the event.

We will hopefully get a clearer picture of the self-driving car at Beijing Auto Show on April 24, which LeEco are attending, according to Engadget.

Not LeEco’s first foray

It is not LeEco’s first foray into the self-driving market, it owns the startup Faraday Future, which introduced its self-driving concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

For those that haven’t heard of LeEco — previously LeTV — the company started as an entertainment provider in China. It holds a large amount of copyright content for TV shows and movies. In the past few years, it has made significant investments in new technologies, like mobile, smart TVs, music, and cloud computing.

While the company hasn’t outright said it, the pushes into new hardware appear to be an attempt to create a ‘hardware-software-services’ ecosystem similar to Apple. That makes the move into self-driving cars less bizarre, as drivers will spend more time watching videos, listening to music, and messaging friends rather than driving in the future.

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China Wants a Manned Moon Mission, Experts Say

China this week became the third nation to land a rover on the Moon, and experts believe the country will follow up with a manned mission to the lunar surface in just a matter of years. The country's rapidly improving program and America's perceived lack of direction could, years from now, lead to a new space race.

The spacecraft Chang'e 3 and its rover, Yutu, are only on the lunar surface to explore. But China's zeal for space is unmatched, and its program is developing fast — to the point that it can be recognized as a space power. Just what that means for the U.S. is up for debate.

"I'm not saying they're militarizing space, or occupying it or [that] they're going to claim the moon ... but there's always that consideration in that relationship between countries," Paul Spudis, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, told Mashable.

For Spudis, the issue is not China's presence in the lunar region, but the United States' absence. He's worried a country that doesn't advocate for a free market could some day stifle how other nations and private businesses operate in space.

"I don't think it's anything to panic about," Spudis said. "It's something to think about seriously."

John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told Mashable that if China wants to play with the big powers on Earth, they bhad etter play with them in space, too. That means, at some point, a manned trip to the Moon.

China has launched several military satellites, which have also caused consternation among some U.S. officials. But Logsdon thinks China's program has caused undue alarm. What the Chinese have done is impressive, sure, but they're a long way from their own mission to Mars.

"People have very short attention spans," Logsdon said. "A year and a half ago we landed a remarkable rover on Mars, and it's producing all kinds of discoveries."

Pascal Lee, planetary scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, toldMashable he wouldn't disagree that America's program is superior. But he feels China's recent success needs to renew American interest in the space program because Beijing's progress has been steady for years, and their missions have so far been almost flawless.

What's more, China seems to have its eyes on tougher missions in the near future. Chang'e 3 is big enough to hold much more than the rover it deposited, meaning the Chinese could have fit a larger, more capable robot in there. With a few more upgrades, they might be able to squeeze in a person or two.

"The truth is these events are really remarkable and they need to get our attention," Lee said. "As soon as we see a Chinese astronaut walking on the Moon, I think it's going to become a national interest of the U.S. to get back to the Moon."

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Bitcoin Prices Plunge After China Cracks Down on Currency

The price of bitcoin surged to $1,000 last month, but it dipped far below that mark just as quickly.
Baidu, China's largest search engine, announced this week that it would no longer accept the digital currency as a form of payment, triggering a steep drop in the price of bitcoin. The announcement, which was posted on the Baidu website, followed a decision from China's central bank to prohibit financial institutions in the country from processing or insuring bitcoin transactions.

Baidu’s website-acceleration platform decided to suspend Bitcoin payment acceptance from Friday, as recent large fluctuations in Bitcoin’s value makes it unable to safeguard users’ interests,” Baidu said in a statement on its website, translated via Bloomberg.
The price of bitcoin, which hit $1,000 for the first time at the end of November and peaked at $1,200 on some exchanges shortly after, has since plummeted to the low $700-range. Its fluctuations can be seen in the chart, below, from Blockchain.info, which aggregates prices across exchanges:

On BTC China, the country's largest bitcoin exchange that previously helped drive up the currency's price worldwide, the price of bitcoins dropped below $700 at one point, and is currently valued at around $775. The chart, below, from Bitcoincharts.com, shows the drop as measured in Chinese yuan.

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