無人駕駛汽車 中國創業者的新冒險

Gansha Wu was a veteran engineering manager at Intel Corporation and director of Intel Labs China when two events upended his world last year.

去年，兩件事顛覆了當時還是英特爾資深工程管理者兼英特爾中國研究院(Intel Labs China)院長的吳甘沙的世界。

First, he listened to the veteran technology writer Michael Malone tell an audience of Intel employees that if they were too cautious they would fail. Then he attended a leadership training session for Intel executives. The trainer told them that “to be a leader is to design a future that is unpredictable and which nobody bets on.”

他先是聽到資深科技作家邁克爾‧馬隆(Michael Malone)在演講中對英特爾員工說，行事過於謹慎便會失敗。後來，他又參加了一場爲英特爾高管舉辦的領導力培訓。培訓師告訴這些主管，“當領導就是設計一個不可預知的、無人押注的未來”。

He couldn’t sleep at night, thinking about his well-ordered, 16-year career at Intel. So he decided to take a risk. With four colleagues, he made the decision to take the uncertain path, which today is becoming more common in China than even in Silicon Valley: He quit his job to begin a start-up that specializes in autonomous, or self-driving, cars.

吳甘沙夜不成眠，思考着自己在英特爾那井然有序的十六載職業生涯。於是他決定要冒一次險。他與四名同事一起，決定走上一條未知的道路：辭去工作，成立一家專注於自動駕駛汽車的創業公司。在現如今的中國，這種決定甚至比在硅谷更常見。

In the process, Mr. Wu hit upon a rare moment when a tech sector in China is developing in lock step with a similar but separate market in the United States.

在這個過程中，吳甘沙遇到了一個罕見的時機，中國的科技業正在和美國那個有些類似卻又獨立的市場同步發展。

In fact, some argue that conditions in China are actually more favorable for quick adoption of driverless cars, in part because of more aggressive support from the national and local governments. And, unlike in the United States, China never fully developed a romance with the open road and car ownership.

實際上，有人聲稱中國迅速採用無人駕駛汽車的條件實際上比美國更有利，部分因爲中央和地方政府的支持力度更大。而且不像美國，中國從未與自由馳騁和私家車建立起深厚的感情。

Car ownership has spiked in China, of course. And in recent years, it has become a middle-class status symbol to own a car. For the ultrawealthy, there are clubs dedicated to Ferraris and Maseratis.

當然，中國的汽車擁有量激增。近年來，有一輛車已經成了中產階級的地位象徵。對鉅富來說，還有專門面向法拉利(Ferraris)和瑪莎拉蒂(Maseratis)的俱樂部。

But enormous traffic jams in China’s largest cities can make driving a less-than-romantic experience. Why not let a machine built with artificial intelligence inside do the work for you?

不過，中國大城市裏的交通堵塞問題嚴重，讓開車成了一種不那麼浪漫的經歷。既然如此，何不讓一臺用人工智能打造的機器來代勞呢？

Research done by the Boston Consulting Group suggests that within 15 years China will be the largest market for autonomous vehicles, said Xavier Mosquet, a managing director at the firm. Automated taxis will most likely lead the trend.

波士頓諮詢公司(Boston Consulting Group)常務董事澤維爾‧莫斯奎特(Xavier Mosquet)表示，該公司的研究顯示，中國將在15年內成爲最大的自動駕駛車輛市場。自動駕駛出租車極有可能引領這股潮流。

“It’s not that people are more willing to use the cars in Beijing or Shanghai, it’s that the economic value is much higher in China than in the U.S.,” Mr. Mosquet said, adding that air pollution could be as much a catalyst as bad traffic.

“這不是因爲北京和上海的人更願意使用無人駕駛汽車，而是因爲它們在中國的經濟價值比在美國更高，”莫斯奎特說。他還接着表示，空氣污染起到的促進作用可能堪比糟糕的交通狀況。

Even as American companies like Google and Tesla work on autonomous vehicles, a number of Chinese companies are working on driverless car technology. The Internet company Leshi Internet Information & Technology (better known as Letv) has a driverless car tech unit, and the Chinese carmaker Great Wall Motors has opened a research center in Silicon Valley. The assumed leader in the field in China is the search engine company Baidu, which has been at work on autonomous vehicles since 2013.

在谷歌(Google)和特斯拉(Tesla)等美國公司都在開發自動駕駛車輛之際，大量中國公司也在研究無人駕駛汽車技術。互聯網公司樂視網信息技術股份有限公司（簡稱樂視）就設立了一個無人車技術部門，中國汽車生產商長城汽車也在硅谷開設了一個研究中心。從2013年就開始研究自動駕駛車輛的搜索引擎公司百度，被認爲是這一領域的領導者。

Among the torrent of start-ups, however, Mr. Wu and his colleagues are unusual because of their experience.

然而，在這股創業公司的洪流中，吳甘沙和同事因其自身的資歷而與衆不同。

Mr. Wu’s company, Uisee Technology, has yet to announce its financial backers, but it has significant ambitions. The team plans to have a technology demonstration ready in less than a year at the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in 2017.

吳甘沙成立的公司驅勢科技尚未公佈投資方，但該公司雄心勃勃。其團隊計劃用不到一年的時間，爲2017年在拉斯維加斯的電子消費品展覽會上進行技術演示做好準備。

“His team is an unusual collection of supertalent,” said Kai-Fu Lee, a venture investor from Taiwan and former head of Google in China. “They combine a mechanical expert from a university, a top computer vision expert and machine learning from Google as well as Gansha and his team of semiconductor experts. Gansha is an excellent leader that binds these people together.”

“他的團隊匯聚了一羣不尋常的超級人才，”李開復稱，他是一名來自臺灣的風險投資人，前谷歌大中華區總裁。“除了吳甘沙和他的半導體專家團隊，還有一名大學的機械專家、一名頂級計算機視覺專家、來自谷歌的機器學習技術。吳甘沙是一名出色的領導人，能夠將這樣的一羣人聚集在一起。”

The founders of Uisee, which is an acronym for Utilization, Indiscriminate, Safety, Efficiency and Environment, say they believe the company will find a profitable niche between the poles of the driverless car debate that is raging in Silicon Valley.

馭勢科技(Uisee)的創始人說，馭勢科技(Uisee)是由五個單詞構成的首字母縮略詞，依次對應的是對時間的利用(Utilization)、無歧視(Indiscriminate)、安全(Safety)、效率(Efficiency)和環境(Environment)，他們相信公司能夠在硅谷大肆展開的有關無人駕駛汽車的兩極分化爭論中找到一個有利可圖的細分市場。

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, has predicted that completely self-driving cars may be on the road in the United States in two to four years. Chris Urmson, the director of Google’s self-driving-car program, has said his goal is to bring a self-driving car to market by 2019.

特斯拉(Tesla)首席執行官埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)曾預言，在未來的2-4年內，完全的自動駕駛汽車或許能夠在美國上路。谷歌無人駕駛汽車項目主管克里斯·厄姆森(Chris Urmson)曾說，他的目標是在2019年使無人駕駛汽車進入市場。

Others are more cautious, and say they believe it may take a decade or longer for self-driving cars to hit the market. And among the biggest automakers like Toyota, the interest is less in cars that drive themselves than in cars that have artificial intelligence capabilities to assist drivers, like emergency braking.

其餘的無人駕駛汽車研發團體則更爲謹慎，他們稱，無人駕駛汽車可能需要十年或更久才能投入市場。對豐田等最大的一些汽車製造商而言，相較於研發無人駕駛汽車，它們對輔助駕駛員的人工智能功能，例如緊急制動，更感興趣。

“We see a few stages toward fully autonomous driving,” said Mr. Wu, adding that safety technologies are coming quickly. He said driver assistance systems will be followed by completely driverless cars in restricted circumstances, such as on private roads, fixed routes at low speed and in controlled environments. Uisee will begin by developing technologies that assist rather than replace drivers.

“我們看得見通向全自動駕駛汽車的一些步驟。”吳甘沙說，並表示安全技術發展迅猛，他表示，駕駛員輔助系統出現之後，會是有限條件下的無人駕駛汽車，譬如在受控環境下，在私人路段上，以及按照固定路線低速行使。馭勢將以研發駕駛輔助科技起步，而非取代駕駛員的科技。

Baidu has teamed up with BMW and recently said it was testing its technology in the United States. Baidu has said it is preparing to introduce automated public transportation services in China within the next two years.

百度與寶馬聯手，並在最近稱，它正在美國測試無人駕駛技術。百度已表示，它打算在兩年內將自動公共交通服務引進中國。

Unlike Google, which has had difficulty convincing regulators in its home state, California, that self-driving cars are ready for the road, Baidu already has the regulatory and infrastructure support of a number of local Chinese governments, which it will use to introduce small autonomous buses that will run set routes.

在其總部所在的加利福尼亞州，谷歌難以讓監管機構相信，自動駕駛汽車已經爲上路做好了準備。與此不同的是，在中國，百度已經得到了很多地方政府在監管和基礎設施方面的支持。百度將藉助這些政府力量，推出在指定線路運行的小型自動駕駛公共汽車。

The Chinese government is playing a major role in the overall driverless market. Along with empowering Baidu to run public transportation, in other cases central and local governments have been investing in research and development for driverless car projects.

在整個無人駕駛市場上，中國政府正在發揮主要作用。除授權百度經營公共交通外，中央和地方政府也一直在投資無人駕駛汽車項目的研發。

Mr. Wu also embodies a growing entrepreneurial movement in China. The Chinese government reported that 4.8 million new companies were registered from March 2014 to May 2015, a rate of 10,600 new businesses per day, or seven every minute. Even though venture investment has begun to dry up in China recently, the nation has clearly been infected with a Silicon Valley attitude.

吳甘沙也是中國不斷高漲的創業潮的象徵。中國政府通報稱，2014年3月至2015年5月，中國新增480萬家註冊公司，相當於每天增加10600家，或者說每分鐘七家。儘管中國的風險投資最近開始枯竭，但該國顯然已經被一種硅谷態度感染了。

Although in some quarters it is still known as the land of copycat technology, China has long since moved on to copying the start-up ethos of the Valley, with more and more entrepreneurs creating their own companies.

儘管在一些領域，中國依然被稱作山寨技術大國，但中國早已發展到了效仿硅谷的創業潮流的階段。越來越多的企業家創辦了自己的公司。

The Chinese government is encouraging the boom as a way to solve a number of economic problems, including unemployment and the transition of the economy from one centered on manufacturing to one based on services.

中國政府正在鼓勵這種繁榮，認爲這是一個解決諸多經濟問題的途徑，包括失業和經濟從以製造業爲中心到以服務業爲重心的轉型。

“This year more than seven million people are entering the job market in China,” said Haiyang Li, a professor at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University in Houston. “What are they going to do with these students? The government does not have any better way to solve the employment issue.”

“今年，中國會有700多萬人進入就業市場，”休斯頓萊斯大學傑西·H·瓊斯商學院研究生院(Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University)教授李海洋說。“他們要怎麼處理這些學生？政府根本沒有更好的解決就業問題的辦法。”

Even as analysts and investors worry the government is over-investing in start-ups, the state support, along with China’s engineering talent and the business need for self-driving cars, could help the nascent business in China.

儘管分析人士和投資者擔心，政府對創業公司投資過度，但政府的支持，再加上中國的工程人才和對自動駕駛汽車的商業需求，可能會對中國無人駕駛汽車這個新興行業有所裨益。

But there are obstacles. In China, roads often have poorly marked lanes and little signage. People, animals, three-wheel rickshaws and trucks are liable to veer in front of a car at any time. That makes for a more challenging engineering problem in China, said Junyi Zhang, a partner with the consulting firm Roland Berger.

但也存在障礙。在中國，道路上的車道往往標識不清，缺乏引導標誌。行人、動物、三輪車和卡車任何時候都可能竄到汽車前面。諮詢公司羅蘭貝格(Roland Berger)的合夥人張君毅表示，這導致中國工程問題的挑戰性增加。

“It is harder in China, where many roads have pedestrians, bicycles, low-speed vehicles and high-speed vehicles all mixed together,” he said. “It is a very complicated environment, and many don’t ride or drive to the same standard.”

“在中國更難，很多路上，行人、自行車、低速車輛和高速車輛全都混在一起，”他說。“環境非常複雜，很多人不按照統一的標準行駛。”