At the recently held 2025 China EV 100 Forum, Zhang Yaqin, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and dean of the Tsinghua University Institute for Artificial Intelligence Industry, made an exciting prediction: self-driving technology will experience its "ChatGPT moment" in 2025. This statement has generated significant industry anticipation for the future of autonomous driving.

Zhang Yaqin stated that self-driving will be the largest embodied AI application within the next five years, and this technology will pass the "new Turing test" for the first time. He further elaborated that while 2025 is a crucial juncture for self-driving, widespread application and popularization will require more time and effort. He believes that if progress continues smoothly, companies like Waymo in the US and Baidu, WeRide, and Pony.ai in China could potentially achieve market breakthroughs by 2025.

Autonomous Driving

According to Zhang Yaqin's prediction, by 2030, an estimated 10% of new cars will possess L4 autonomous driving capabilities, a moment he termed the "DeepSeek moment." This marks another significant milestone in the large-scale popularization of self-driving technology.

While Zhang Yaqin is optimistic about the development of self-driving, he also cautions that the process won't be without challenges. The safety and technological maturity of self-driving still need continuous improvement, requiring collaborative efforts from relevant companies and institutions to ensure reliability and safety.

It's worth noting that last year, He Xiaopeng, chairman of XPeng Motors, expressed a similar view, believing 2025 will be the "ChatGPT moment" for autonomous driving. This further fuels industry anticipation for the future of autonomous driving.

In today's rapidly developing technological landscape, self-driving is not merely a pursuit of technology companies but also a significant trend in societal development. We look forward to witnessing the revolutionary changes self-driving technology will bring to our transportation in the near future.