近日，“萝卜快跑”、“无人驾驶出租车”等话题在各大社交媒体网站引发热议。
萝卜快跑是百度旗下自动驾驶出行服务平台，已于11个城市开放载人测试运营服务，并且在北京、武汉、重庆、深圳、上海开展全无人自动驾驶出行服务测试。截至2024年4月19日，萝卜快跑在开放道路提供累积单量超600万次，累积测试里程超1亿公里。
随着无人驾驶网约车的逐步推广，无人驾驶是否抢了出租车和网约车司机的饭碗？而司机的职业，有无可能被无人驾驶所取代？除此之外，无人驾驶的安全问题也是大家重点关心的问题。
让我们一起来阅读关于萝卜快跑无人驾驶的相关外刊。
Source：百度百科
今天的外刊选自CNBC，共计825词，预计阅读时间8分钟。
通过这次的外刊，你将收获：
○无人驾驶目前在中国的发展
○长难句的拆解
希望你在阅读全文后能够回答以下问题：
○无人驾驶网约车对出租车产业有哪些影响？
○无人驾驶又面临哪些限制和挑战？
外刊解析
China's Robotaxi Push Sparks Concerns about Job Security for Drivers
BEIJING — China’s yearslong effort to develop robotaxis is starting to gain traction with consumers — but it’s also rattling taxi drivers worried about losing their jobs as a result of increasing competition.
Just as GM’s Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo have rolled out driverless taxis in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, local Chinese governments from Beijing to Guangzhou have allowed domestic players to operate robotaxi rides for the public.
This week, the rising prominence of robotaxis in China began trending on social media.
As of Thursday morning, videos about fully autonomous driving taxi experiences were the 12th most popular topic on Douyin, Bytedance’s China version of TikTok.
Baidu’s robotaxi unit Apollo Go became one of the top 10 trending hashtags on social media platform Weibo on Wednesday following reports of rapid user adoption in Wuhan city.
The company began operating fully driverless vehicles in certain districts of Wuhan, 24/7 in March.
Wuhan is the largest operational region for Baidu’s Apollo Go, one of the largest robotaxi operators in China. The company has more than 500 robotaxis operating in the city and plans to increase that to 1,000 by the end of the year.
When contacted by CNBC, Baidu had no official updates to share.
The increased attention on robotaxis comes as major Chinese cities ramp up support, while smaller cities restricted ride-hailing apps in the last few months.
Source：Getty Images
Top social media posts on Wednesday were quick to extrapolate from Wuhan’s robotaxi tests, predicting an impending nationwide rollout and spawning hashtags like: “Are driverless ride-hailing cars stealing people’s rice bowls.” That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.
Also making the rounds on social media was an appeal in late June by a taxi company in Wuhan seeking reduced taxes and more restrictions on Apollo Go robotaxis as well as the number of ride-hailing cars.
CNBC was unable to independently verify the document, which claimed the taxi company had to stop operating four of its 159-car fleet since April due to falling income.
Wage growth in China overall has slowed from around 10% annual increases prior to the pandemic, to 4% in recent years, according to Goldman Sachs analysis published last month. The pace improved to 5.6% year-on-year growth in the first quarter, the report said.
Source：Pixabay
Ride-hailing drivers on the rise
A surge of new companies and ride-hailing drivers have meanwhile prompted some local governments to restrict the industry.
The city of Guyuan in Ningxia autonomous region announced that as of May 12, it was suspending online ride-hailing businesses.
“Our city’s taxi market is already saturated,” the announcement said in Chinese, translated by CNBC.
Separately, the southwestern city of Guiyang had suspended new ride-hailing licenses for half a year through June. The announcement said authorities were able to remove some non-compliant ride-hailing businesses and cars.
China had more than 7 million registered ride-hailing drivers as of the end of May, according to the Ministry of Transport.
That’s roughly twice as many versus the 3.51 million drivers reported for July 2021, and 570,000 more drivers than the ministry reported as of November.
In comparison, the U.S. had nearly 400,000 taxi and ride-hailing drivers, shuttle drivers and chauffeurs in 2022, according to the latest available figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The number of ride-hailing companies in China has also climbed, from 241 in 2021 to 351 in May this year, according to the Ministry of Transport.
Source：Pixabay
China pushes ahead with robotaxi support
Multiple Chinese ministries in January released a plan to promote cloud-connected cars, including tests of at least 200 low-speed unmanned vehicles in each pilot region. Last week, the same authorities released a list of 20 initial pilot cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Wuhan.
Those cities have already allowed robotaxi operators to test cars in suburban areas.
Beijing city in November 2021 started to allow Baidu’s Apollo Go and startup Pony.ai to collect fares from the public for rides with a safety driver inside the robotaxis.
Last year, Beijing city let the operators remove all staff from a few of the vehicles. The city last month released draft rules that put the responsibility of a robotaxi traffic violation on the car owner and manager if there is no driver.
The public-facing rides are currently subsidized, and the number of vehicles on the road are still far lower than those of traditional taxis.
The Apollo Go app showed Thursday that a 45-minute robotaxi ride from Daxing airport to a southern suburb of Beijing would be fully subsidized – the entire 193.84 yuan ($26.66) cost was waived. The app also showed a 16-minute robotaxi ride within that Beijing suburb would cost 10.36 yuan, about half the 20 yuan fare listed by ride-hailing apps, which can call taxis.
Source：Pixabay
Source: CNBC
Author: Evelyn Cheng
Date: July 11, 2024
生词拓展：
1. hashtag
英音/ˈhæʃ.tæɡ/ 美音/ˈhæʃ.tæɡ/
[N] Used on social media for describing the general subject of a Tweet or other post (= message). 在社交媒体上发文时用来描述主题的#号
例句：
I often use hashtags to search for trending topics.
我通常使用话题标签来搜索热门话题。
2. extrapolate
英音/ɪkˈstræp.ə.leɪt/ 美音/ɪkˈstræp.ə.leɪt/
[N] To guess or think about what might happen using information that is already known. 推断;推知
例句：
You can't really extrapolate a trend from such a small sample.
你不能仅凭这样一件小小的样品就推断出潮流真正的发展趋势。
3. saturate
英音/ˈsætʃ.ər.eɪt/ 美音/ˈsætʃ.ər.eɪt
[N] To make something or someone completely wet. 使湿透;浸透;渗透
例句：
The grass had been saturated by overnight rain.
一夜的雨淋透了草地。
4. chauffeur
英音/ˈʃəʊ.fər/ 美音/ʃoʊˈfɝː/
[N] Someone whose job is to drive a car for a rich or important person. （富人或要人的）私人司机
例句：
They were met at the airport by a chauffeur in uniform.
他们在机场被一位身着制服的司机接待了。
5. subsidize
英音/ˈsʌb.sɪ.daɪz/ 美音/ˈsʌb.sə.daɪz/
[N] To pay part of the cost of something. 给予…津贴（或补贴）;资助
例句：
The refugees live in subsidized housing provided by the authorities.
难民们居住在当局提供的有政府补贴的住房里。
6. waive
英音/weɪv/ 美音/weɪv/
[N] To not demand something you have a right to, or not cause a rule to be obeyed. 放弃（权利）;不遵守（规则）
例句：
If they waive the time limit, many more applications will come in.
假如取消时间限制，那么就会收到多得多的申请。
知识卡：
无人驾驶技术
无人驾驶技术，作为未来交通领域的革命性突破，正在全球范围内掀起一股科技浪潮。在国内，中国无疑是推动无人驾驶技术发展的先锋力量。从政府层面的政策扶持到科技巨头的积极投入，中国无人驾驶行业展现出蓬勃的发展态势。百度Apollo、小马智行（Pony.ai）等企业取得了显著进展，不仅在北京、上海等一线城市进行广泛测试，还逐步向全国范围推广。特别是在武汉等城市，无人驾驶出租车已经实现了商业化运营，为市民提供了便捷、智能的出行选择。
与此同时，国际上也涌现出了一批无人驾驶技术的领军者。美国的Waymo和Cruise凭借其在自动驾驶技术上的深厚积累，率先在旧金山、凤凰城等地推出了无人驾驶出租车服务，引领了全球无人驾驶商业化的潮流。欧洲各国也不甘落后，纷纷加大在无人驾驶领域的研发投入，力求在全球市场中占据一席之地。
无人驾驶技术的快速发展，不仅有望重塑交通出行方式，提升道路安全水平，还将为智慧城市的建设提供有力支撑。然而，无人驾驶技术的全面普及仍面临诸多挑战，包括技术成熟度、法律法规完善、公众接受度提升等方面。随着技术的不断进步和政策的逐步完善，相信无人驾驶技术将在不远的将来走进千家万户，为人类带来更加便捷、安全、高效的出行体验。
Source: Getty Images
重难点解析：
1. BEIJING — China’s yearslong effort to develop robotaxis is starting to gain traction with consumers — but it’s also rattling taxi drivers worried about losing their jobs as a result of increasing competition.
译文：
北京——中国多年来发展无人驾驶出租车的努力开始赢得消费者的青睐，但这也让出租车司机感到不安，因为他们担心日益激烈的竞争会导致自己失业。
解析：
这是一个并列句，由并列词but进行连接，表示转折关系。在第一个分句中，由“China’s yearslong effort to develop robotaxis”作主语，“is starting to gain”作谓语，“traction”作宾语，“with consumers”是介词短语作定语，修饰traction。而在第二个分句中，主语“it”指代前文提到的“China’s yearslong effort to develop robotaxis”，谓语是“is also rattling”，宾语“taxi drivers”，表示使出租车司机感到不安。“worried about losing their jobs”是过去分词作后置定语，修饰taxi drivers, “as a result of increasing competition”是介词短语作原因状语。这里的短语“gain traction”表示某个观点变得流行或某个产品被消费者所接受。
2. Top social media posts on Wednesday were quick to extrapolate from Wuhan’s robotaxi tests, predicting an impending nationwide rollout and spawning hashtags like: “Are driverless ride-hailing cars stealing people’s rice bowls.”
译文：
周三社交媒体上最热门的帖子迅速从武汉的无人驾驶出租车测试中推断出，预测了一个即将在全国范围内推出的无人驾驶出租车服务，并产生了像“无人驾驶网约车是否在抢人们的饭碗”这样的热门话题标签。
解析：
“Top social media posts on Wednesday”作句子主语，“were quick to”作谓语部分，其中“extrapolate from”表示从中推断。“predicting”和“spawning”这两个动词作为和“were quick to”并列的两个谓语，表示主语同时进行的两个动作，“an impending nationwide rollout”是“predicting”的宾语，“hashtags like”是“spawning”的宾语。
3. CNBC was unable to independently verify the document, which claimed the taxi company had to stop operating four of its 159-car fleet since April due to falling income.
译文：
CNBC无法独立验证这份文件，文件中声称由于收入下降，该出租车公司自4月以来不得不停止运营其159辆车中的4辆。
解析：
这句是复合句，包含主句和从句。在主句中，“CNBC”作主语，“was unable to independently verify”作谓语，“the document”作宾语。由which作关系代词，引导非限制性定语从句，修饰先行词the document, 说明这份文件的内容。而从句中，“the taxi company”做主语，“had to stop operating”作谓语，“four of its 159-car fleet”作宾语，“ since April”作时间状语，“due to falling income”作原因状语。
今天的外刊内容到这里就结束了~
无人驾驶，它不开小差，也不抢道，甚至自带GPS，仿佛天生就是一位“老司机”。
你在你的城市，坐上了这辆“老司机”开的车了吗？
喜欢"有译思"外刊精读栏目的小伙伴可以在下周同一时间继续关注我们，下周见！
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