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.

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.

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