China’s robotaxi push is sparking job safety fears amongst drivers, however consultants say the expertise is already creating new jobs.

On Tuesday, China issued 16,000 check licenses for autonomous automobiles and opened 32,000 kilometers of public check roads. In June, the federal government additionally greenlit 9 home automakers, together with BYD and Nio, to start testing conditionally automated driving applied sciences on sure public roads. Elon Musk is seeking to get regulatory approval for Tesla’s Full-Self Driving expertise by the top of this yr.

However all that motion has led to many Chinese language social media customers saying autonomous driving is “snatching rice bowls” of drivers, or placing them out of labor.

Baidu’s self-driving trip hailing platform Apollo Go has greater than 500 robotaxis working in Wuhan — its largest operational area — and plans to extend that to 1,000 by the top of the yr. Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, mentioned the agency’s share of Wuhan’s ride-hailing market is barely about 1%.

“Scaling shall be a gradual course of and it may take a few years,” Li mentioned in the course of the agency’s quarterly earnings name on Aug. 22.

The Apollo Go service grew to become so standard that taxi drivers petitioned Wuhan’s transport authority to restrict the use of the service, in line with media studies.

A examine on the Apollo Go app confirmed a 16-minute robotaxi trip throughout the southern suburb of Beijing suburb would price 10.36 yuan ($1.46), about half the 20 yuan fare listed by ride-hailing apps, which may name taxis.

Regardless of the flurry of headlines, consultants say autonomous mobility will mature progressively.

“You’ll not lose all the roles in a single go. Will probably be a gradual transition part space by space, area by area,” mentioned Mohit Sharma, analysis analyst at Counterpoint Analysis.

He added that governments may collaborate with robotaxi firms to modify drivers to different jobs, whereas schooling techniques can prepare new generations for the roles of the longer term.

An Apollo Go spokesperson mentioned the agency is dedicated towards creating new job alternatives within the ecosystem. Roles embrace these in monitoring and testing techniques, in addition to information annotation, the agency mentioned.

Wang Juan, who has been working as an on-road testing operator at Apollo Go for about two years, instructed CNBC that she determined to affix the trade as a result of she was all for it. On-road testing operators trial autonomous automobiles and supply suggestions on issues encountered in the course of the exams for optimization.

She used to work at an automaker however felt her profession stagnated there. She jumped on the alternative to work for Apollo Go as a substitute.

“Very difficult. It is very totally different from my earlier job,” she mentioned in Mandarin about her present position, translated by CNBC. “On this position, I search to search out the issues and points with the autonomous automobiles.”

Jeff Farrah, CEO for the Autonomous Automobile Business Affiliation, mentioned the trade “is creating all kinds of recent, well-paying jobs” within the U.S. These roles embrace service technicians, distant help operators, mapping specialists, dispatchers and terminal operators, he mentioned.

“Regardless that AVs carry out all facets of the driving job, staff are important to the expertise. It is also necessary to keep in mind that AVs’ elevated accessibility advantages will assist the incapacity group acquire new employment alternatives,” Farrah mentioned.

Whereas there’s at all times some job displacement when new expertise enters the market, Sharma agreed innovation will even “create extra jobs and new jobs due to the expertise.” Sharma named cybersecurity, automobile testing and validation and software program growth as a number of the alternatives.

“In the long term, autonomous driving will certainly displace the driving force jobs. However once more, there’s already a scarcity of drivers. So undoubtedly, for the taxi [companies], you possibly can see it is a profit for them,” he mentioned.

– CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.