In today's era of rapid technological development, the field of autonomous driving has become the focus of global attention. After the 2024 US election, the Trump team has frequently interacted with technology giants in autonomous driving, and plans to relax regulations in this field. This move will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the development of the autonomous driving industry in the US.

The US adopts a two-tier management model of "federal - state government" in autonomous driving legislation. The federal government provides direction for the states through a series of guidance documents, such as the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy. However, there are differences in specific regulations among states. California is at the forefront of autonomous driving public road testing and commercialization, allowing road tests of driverless autonomous vehicles and approving commercial operations of companies like Waymo and Cruise.

Nevada was the first to pass independent vehicle laws, and Florida has allowed autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads since 2012, with further legal measures in 2016. However, a unified legal framework has not yet been formed at the federal level, leading to inconsistencies in AV regulation among states. Nonetheless, the US has made significant progress in the autonomous driving industry, with companies like Waymo and Cruise offering driverless taxi services. However, they face issues such as technical defects exposed by serious accidents, low user acceptance (only 12% of American consumers are willing to accept true driverless vehicles), social controversy, and ethical dilemmas. In the future, the US may develop comprehensive autonomous driving regulations, build a federal framework, and relax existing regulatory restrictions to promote commercial applications.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean, China is meticulously planning in the field of vehicle-road-cloud integration, akin to playing a grand chess game with far-reaching impacts. The essence of vehicle-road-cloud integration is a "communication-sensing-computing" network, which is highly significant. Through real-time digitization of the physical world, it provides real-time data services for various smart devices, including autonomous vehicles, ordinary vehicles, robots, drones, etc., enabling real-time interaction between smart devices and the physical world.

China has concentrated issued relevant policies to promote the development of vehicle-road-cloud integration. In January 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued the Notice on Carrying Out Pilot Work on the Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in the "Vehicle-Road-Cloud Integration" Model. The pilot period is from 2024 to 2026, aiming to establish a number of city-level pilot projects with the same architecture, unified standards, interconnected services, and security and reliability, vigorously promoting the industrialization of intelligent connected vehicles. The pilot content covers the construction of intelligent roadside infrastructure, the improvement of vehicle-mounted terminal installation rates, and other aspects. In April, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Transport issued the Support and Guidance for the Digital Transformation and Upgrading of Highway and Waterway Transport Infrastructure, providing subsidies for different regions to support the creation of demonstration corridors and networks for the digital transformation of roads of different grades. In June, based on previous policy support for L3 and L4 autonomous driving, the first batch of consortia were identified to carry out pilot projects for the admission and road access of intelligent connected vehicles in seven cities including Beijing. The products covered passenger cars, buses, and trucks. In July, 20 cities (consortia) were identified as pilot cities for the application of the "vehicle-road-cloud integration" model for intelligent connected vehicles. According to policy advancements, it is expected that by 2026, the "vehicle-road-cloud integration" model will cover at least 20 major cities (consortia) and the "6 axes, 7 corridors, 8 passages" highways, giving rise to a huge market worth tens of trillions.

In August 2024, the US Federal Department of Transportation also followed China's policies by releasing the National V2X Technology Deployment Plan: It plans to deploy V2X technology on 20% of segments of the National Highway System (NHS) and at one-quarter of intersections in 75 major metropolitan areas between 2024 and 2028; on 50% of segments between 2029 and 2031; and achieve full deployment by 2036.

Despite challenges in policy continuity and technological first-mover advantages, vehicle-road-cloud integration is considered a key entry point to the intelligent world of the future, holding great significance for technological competition among major powers.

The vehicle-road-cloud network primarily addresses three issues in the transportation sector: global safety, global efficiency, and global game theory decision-making. In terms of global safety, traditional vehicles are limited by perspective and physical environment, resulting in missing or delayed processing of surrounding environmental information, which is the root cause of most traffic accidents. For example, in extreme weather, darkness, or when objects obstruct view, a vehicle's own sensing equipment may have blind spots. The vehicle-road-cloud network can collect comprehensive traffic environmental information within several kilometers through roadside intelligent devices, unaffected by weather or obstructions, and promptly transmit this information to vehicles. Roadside base stations can quickly detect accidents and notify vehicles to avoid them in advance, thereby preventing safety issues caused by missing or delayed information. From a global efficiency perspective, the current transportation system lacks effective global scheduling. The vehicle-road-cloud network can utilize system-level scheduling, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence algorithms to deeply mine and analyze traffic data, quickly identify accidents in unexpected situations, and adjust the route of each vehicle to optimize traffic flow and reduce congestion. For global game theory decision-making, with the explosive growth of intelligent agents (such as autonomous vehicles), the vehicle-road-cloud network enables intention sharing and collaborative decision-making through group perception and group computation. Taking Beijing as an example, the difficulty of game theory decision-making varies with the number of intelligent vehicles. The vehicle-road-cloud network can break through the limitations of single-vehicle intelligence to find the optimal individual solution under global optimality.

The vehicle-road-cloud network also has the potential to promote the large-scale popularization and application of autonomous driving. It collects data through roadside intelligent devices cost-effectively and efficiently, which can in turn nourish model training and establish barriers for building large, localized end-to-end autonomous driving models for multi-agent systems. In the future, the vehicle-road-cloud network will be the starting point for the next-generation communication-sensing-computing network, integrating individual intelligent devices into a group intelligent system, promoting the realization of a digital intelligent society. It will not only serve the transportation sector but also expand to a series of intelligent agents such as drones and robots, forming a real-time, city-level digital twin system. In November 2024, Tongxiang collaborated with MoGu Auto to build China's first holographic real-time digital twin intersection with vehicle-road-cloud integration.

Comparing the development paths of autonomous driving and related fields between China and the US, it can be seen that the US focuses on stimulating corporate vitality in autonomous driving technology research and development and commercialization by relaxing regulations. Its advantage lies in strong corporate innovation drivers, which may lead to faster progress in exploring technological frontiers. However, this relatively loose regulatory model may sacrifice safety and standardization to a certain extent. In contrast, China approaches the overall industrial layout and social development needs, building a comprehensive vehicle-road-cloud integration system through large-scale government-led policies. This model is conducive to integrating resources from all parties, rapidly forming a scaling effect, and promoting the comprehensive development of autonomous driving and related intelligent industries while ensuring safety and standardization.

China's layout in the field of vehicle-road-cloud integration is a long-term plan for the future digital intelligent society. With the gradual implementation of relevant policies and continuous technological development, the vehicle-road-cloud network will establish an efficient, safe, and intelligent transportation and smart device interaction system in China. This will not only reshape transportation but also drive transformation and upgrading of a series of related industries, occupying an important position in the global intelligent technology competition and laying a solid foundation for realizing the grand goal of a digital intelligent society.