US and China Accelerate L4 Autonomous Driving Rollout as Robotaxi Commercialization Nears

Level 4 (L4) autonomous driving worldwide is being spearheaded by China and the United States. In the U.S., Waymo has already completed over 20 million driverless rides across six major metropolitan areas. In China, bolstered by supportive policies, five cities—including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen—will open their entire urban areas to commercial L4 operations starting August 2025. Baidu’s “Apollo Go” (Luobo Kuaipao) has expanded to 22 cities, serving more than 17 million passengers. Pony.ai and WeRide have achieved per-vehicle breakeven in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. On the technology front, two competing approaches are vying for dominance: “multi-sensor fusion” (e.g., Huawei ADS 3.0, Baidu Apollo) versus “vision-only” systems (e.g., Tesla, XPeng’s XNGP), with the latter logging 3 million kilometers of daily training mileage. Industry consensus holds that achieving L4 deployment hinges on accumulating data from mass production at the million-vehicle scale. Over the next five years, closed-scenario applications will lead the way in profitability. Long-haul trucking and autonomous buses (Robobus) are expected to reach operational and financial closure between 2025 and 2027, while robotaxis (Robotaxi) are projected to see widespread adoption between 2027 and 2030. Meanwhile, LiDAR costs are anticipated to drop below RMB 500, bringing total L4 system costs down to RMB 80,000–120,000.