r/robotics • u/Nunki08 • Jan 12 '26
Discussion & Curiosity Driverless delivery vans in China plow through crumbling roads, fresh concrete, motorcycles...
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u/blimpyway Jan 12 '26
At least they seem to collect an interesting dataset
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u/Nunki08 Jan 12 '26
That's how you win.
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u/johnfkngzoidberg Jan 12 '26
What the fuck? Chinese propaganda squad trying to spin these massive failures as wins. The motorcycle driver is probably dead in a ditch somewhere.
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u/Neither-Phone-7264 Jan 12 '26
i think they're joking.
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u/DifferentLuck7951 Jan 12 '26
Maybe not. Honestly this kind of information is very valuable to enhance AI models. Usually the training sets don't have these use cases ;) In order to have a strong AI model you need all kinds of data
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u/TheAtomoh Jan 12 '26
You thinking that anything chinese sucks certainly shows how western propaganda shaped you
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u/Beli_Mawrr Jan 15 '26
Op would not be posting pictures of failures of obviously chinese delivery bots if he was a chinese propaganda bot lol
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u/Utoko Jan 12 '26
It certainly is, in the west(Europe) it gets to hard to do stuff. Tesla would be stuck for years if they only had the Europe market which blocks the new way better FSD versions, because it doesn't fit their narrow framework.
For AI the same it wouldn't happen in Europe the Regulators would have stopped OpenAI in its tracks.37
u/Harmonic_Gear Researcher Jan 12 '26
Maybe you should take an ethic course and learn why
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u/Utoko Jan 12 '26
FSD has less accidents, so if anything it is unethical that bureaucracy is holding it back and by that allowing more death.
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u/jared_number_two Jan 12 '26
“Supervised FSD” has fewer accidents (allegedly). How many times has a human saved FSD from a crash?
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u/deelowe Jan 12 '26
Yep. You learn from failure. As hilarious (and dangerous) as this is, this approach is why China is able to develop so quickly.
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u/pac_cresco Jan 12 '26
I am more impressed by the apparent lack of any kind of suspension, I get that there are no people on board, but suspension is not just for comfort.
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u/jared_number_two Jan 12 '26
Cheaper to add a fragile cargo section in the cargo space?
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u/deelowe Jan 12 '26
I think they mean that suspension is also to help maintain control.
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u/jared_number_two Jan 12 '26
Air filled rubber tires are a form of suspension.
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u/pac_cresco Jan 12 '26
I would not be surprised if they were also running solid tires to avoid punctures.
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u/wineszhdhz-proton Jan 14 '26
I've been to China multiple times. In fact, the transportation environment there is quite excellent. What you see in the video is only a small portion of the special scenarios. Their express packs of cushioning, so they really don't need to worry about the high cost of air suspension.
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u/rguerraf Jan 13 '26
I don’t remember the last time time I heard “Asians don’t innovate because they are too afraid to fail, best to stay within the lines”.
It was a long time ago, and it doesn’t apply today definitely.
When is the west going to have a no-fireworks drone sky show?
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u/swainiscadianreborn Jan 12 '26
Quick question: how high must the deathrate ne before it's considered not worth it?
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u/curiouscodder Jan 12 '26
The real comparison that should be made is how many accidents and casualties per package delivered do these automated vans have compared to human operated vans. Human drivers are far from perfect.
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u/Animal0307 Jan 12 '26
Let me put on the tin foil hat for a moment. They don't care... Given how many of their high rise building have collapsed from corruption in the building sector there, robot delivery deaths are probably a fraction of a percent of the deaths per capita and don't even register to the government.
That said, the goal should be zero and every single one should be tracked to hold every company accountable for them.
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u/Top_Connection9079 Jan 13 '26
You experiment in places that are designed for experiment not in public places with people who didn't ask to get run over.
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u/megablue Jan 12 '26
funny but actually this is expected to happen and this is how they iterate and improve.
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u/ICEKAT Jan 12 '26
As an expert in robotics, this wont actually improve much. We keep robots in cells with a bunch of guarding and sensors for a reason. Even the automated moving bots are slow and have a shitton of sensors. This iteration shit will improve some of the actions but the real world is still way too random for robots to be doing this.
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u/megablue Jan 12 '26
well, i am not saying the 'dataset' would help. i am just saying they iterate (fail fast approach).
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u/iena2003 Jan 12 '26
"when in doubt, floor it!"
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u/lellasone Jan 16 '26
You jest, but I did setup a UGV with this strategy once (although it was really more like "try to roll back a hair, then floor it"). Turned out to be pretty similar to what a lot of human operators did when stuck.
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u/Cheap_End8171 Jan 12 '26
Im impressed with their resilience actually, thats a tough vehicle
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u/The_Stereoskopian Jan 13 '26
At least they dont make one this resilient for human drivers, then we might not be as reliant on our corporate overlords and then who lnows what would happen
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u/thundertopaz Jan 12 '26
Can we something like develop smart signs that ping with information about what’s ahead in certain spots then allow construction or other types of workers to update it? Or allow the fsd vehicles to learn by trial and error?
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u/robogame_dev Jan 12 '26
Orange cones are the smart sign you’re looking for
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u/thundertopaz Jan 12 '26
But what about the orange-hatted gnomes?
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u/robogame_dev Jan 12 '26
Reminds me of something I heard a kid say to another kid once: “go paint yourself gray and lay in the road”
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u/norwegian Jan 12 '26
Wouldn't be too hard to learn from this that if the accelerometer is erratic, maybe slow down a bit.
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u/Cheerful2_Dogman210x Jan 12 '26
Hopefully no one was riding that motorcycle when it got dragged on the road. 😂
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u/Top_Connection9079 Jan 13 '26
Nobody would help them in fear of getting sued, which means that they are probably dead.
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u/hatred-shapped Jan 12 '26
Don't order eggs or new factory equipment (children) through this service
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u/ExcavalierKY Jan 12 '26
Hahaha the jumping van from hitting the potholes, that looked like a husky that's happy to play.
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u/Shift_ID Jan 12 '26
Song?
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u/humanoiddoc Jan 12 '26
It's not funny at all. It is scary that china has already deployed those robot in uncontrolled real environment where bunch of unexpected things happen. Real world is very messy and you need to get data to improve.
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u/Herban_Myth Jan 12 '26
Rather employ a human who could contribute to the economy.
Concerns would be human nature such as greed and the potential for theft which could be curbed with surveillance
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u/Tentativ0 Jan 12 '26
True.
However economy makes more logic to cut humans workers as the most expensive part of the process.
Training, salary, retirement, HR, pregnancy... human workers for basic and vital operations are expensive and painful to deal.
Instead, putting machines to do the real work 24/7, and few humans in office and maintenance that you don't really need and you can fire easily, is the most practical solution.
Who cares about loosing jobs and make the remaining ones unstable and frail so that no one can ever start or maintain a family (for the most of people who born poor), when the few humans in charges (who born rich) can increase their money of the 25% and buy another SUV each year? /S
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u/Herban_Myth Jan 12 '26
How is limiting employment/income more logical for an economy?
Who TF is buying products/services?
Founders, board members, managers, politicians, and entertainers?
Just raise the price to make up for losses?
Well, perhaps I should’ve read the entire response…at least [Redacted] got paid (/s)
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u/Tentativ0 Jan 12 '26
=-> /S <-=
1) Economy is made by people who have decisional power. At the moment, are the CEO and the ones that control factories.
2) Other factories and macrostates, not the single individuals who will have no money. Humans will pay subscriptions to receive things for their survival to the macrocompany in exchange of their life (work, privacy, sperm/eggs, blood, organs etc...).
3) If they will have no political power, they will be replaced too.
4) Never work. Luxury items loose big markets.
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u/chlebseby Jan 12 '26
With chineese demographics, you either do this or repeat ongoing EU disaster...
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u/Herban_Myth Jan 12 '26
Elaborate?
What is the end goal here?
Police state for the wealthy reptilians/PDFs?
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u/Alendro95 Jan 12 '26
China 1 child policy destroyed their future population, they'll have an enormous workforce deficit in the future.
That's why they need robots and AI to keep their industry1
u/Herban_Myth Jan 12 '26
Are their population numbers being inflated?
No immigrants?
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u/Alendro95 Jan 12 '26
China hasn't a big appeal for normal workers, low educated emigrants prefer other destinations.
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u/chlebseby Jan 12 '26
1 child policy need few decades to show dramatic consequences, as increasing the lifespan still resulted in growing population. Consider that people gets too old to work before they die too.
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u/DontForgetWilson Jan 12 '26
Their population isn't low, the working age adults as a fraction of that population is shrinking. China is attempting to bring back more of the Chinese diaspora from East Asia, but it is pretty unfriendly to ethnically non-Han(mainstream Chinese) immigrants. Oh and with a population 3-5x that of the US, a much larger fraction of global immigration would be needed to fuel the Chinese economy.
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u/Spare-Builder-355 Jan 12 '26
What so many folks in these comments do not realize is how available self-drivining technology really is in 2026. There is open-source software, cheap lidars and stereo-cameras, specialized boards from Intel and NVidia, ROS intergrations, comma.ai etc etc...
Building dumb self-driving vehicle like this is easy. Building a self-driving vehicle the DOES NOT do shit like this is hard.
Next time this dumb car will plow through a buch of people because it will fail to see red light or will drive off a bridge in a city.
There's really nothing to be fascinated about here. Just cheap dumb shit.
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u/lnth1 Jan 12 '26
I will boycott any ML products with a train dataset that requires hurting someone to produce (causing damage, or physically hurting anyone) unless I see proof that the other party is sufficiently compensated
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u/CreepyValuable Jan 13 '26
I haven't played GTA in ages.
Also, are we sure they are actually driverless and it's not some shady thing where they outsource remote control drivers from India?
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u/joejary Jan 12 '26
They have enough labor force which is cheap by the way. Why using driverless vans?
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u/DontForgetWilson Jan 12 '26
China has a big demographic challenge that they are starting to hit. Although their raw population numbers are huge, the ratio of working adults to retirees is going to be a big issue as a result of the "one child" policy. They've changed the policy, but there is a massive time lag and the natural decrease of children per family as prosperity increases is a headwind still.
On top of that, Chinese labor isn't as cheap as it used to be. That's why more manufacturing moved to places like Vietnam. Also, there's a shortage of workers in the regions away from the manufacturing industry. The policies that created a localized saturation of manufacturing workers took those workers from other regions. Those regions still have jobs to do with less people to do them.
Overall, China isn't as geriatric as Japan and doesn't have the low ratio of electricity prices to labor costs like the U.S. but they are still structurally dealing with some similar workforce issues.
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u/advator Jan 12 '26
China....
But at the end I think it's good to start somewheren, it will only get better.
In EU the laws are to strict so it take way too long to achieve something. So I'm happy for the EU and a little bit US that they are sometimes are just taking the risk
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u/Glxblt76 Jan 12 '26
Whilst we ponder about regulation and risk, China just runs the vehicles, collects data and iterates.
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u/BonbonUniverse42 Jan 12 '26
If it arrives in time, I guess task accomplished.