DiDi's Zhang Bo Envisions Autonomous Vehicles as "Mobile Rooms"

At the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Development High-Level Forum (2026), held from April 11th to 12th at the China National Convention Center Phase II in Beijing, DiDi Global Inc. Co-founder and CEO of DiDi Autonomous Driving, Zhang Bo, delivered a speech. The forum's theme focused on advancing the intelligent, green, integrated, and international development of new energy vehicles.

Zhang Bo stated that DiDi Global Inc. currently facilitates over 50 million daily trips for users worldwide, with 18.9 million in China and 14 million overseas. DiDi Autonomous Driving was established in 2016 with two primary goals: enhancing safety, as the technology has been proven safer than human drivers, and transforming the travel experience. Zhang Bo believes that with the advent of the autonomous driving era, vehicles will evolve into a new entity, which he describes as a "mobile room." This space would seamlessly connect with the previous and next locations. For example, if a user is in a meeting room, the autonomous vehicle becomes a well-equipped mobile conference room; if the user was resting, the vehicle transforms into a comfortable space for relaxation.

Regarding the commercialization of L4 autonomous driving technology, Zhang Bo identified the optimal path as building upon existing human driver networks, like DiDi Global Inc.'s, to create a hybrid service combining human-driven and autonomous vehicles, specifically for robotaxi services. This approach is supported by two key factors. First, autonomous driving technology will face policy restrictions for a considerable time; for instance, in Beijing, services without a driver are only permitted in specific zones, and point-to-point policies are not expected to be liberalized soon. Second, despite significant advances in AI over the past few years, the technology cannot yet achieve a safety level ten times that of a human driver under all adverse weather and road conditions. Therefore, a hybrid model is necessary to ensure stable and reliable transportation services for the foreseeable future.