自动驾驶到底是个啥？从科幻到街头的百年旅程 / What Exactly Is Autonomous Driving? A 120-Year Journey From Sci-Fi to the Street

2024年春天的北京亦庄，28岁的互联网运营小林像往常一样打开打车软件，选了个「萝卜快跑」的选项，来的车没有司机，她坐进副驾报了手机尾号，车就稳稳当当汇入了晚高峰的车流——这已经是她这个月第三次打无人网约车了，她甚至已经习惯了在车上改PPT，不用盯着路，也不用担心司机绕路。

In the spring of 2024 in Yizhuang, Beijing, 28-year-old internet operations manager Xiao Lin opened her ride-hailing app as usual, selected the "Apollo Go" option, and a driverless car arrived. She got into the passenger seat, reported the last four digits of her phone number, and the car smoothly merged into the evening rush-hour traffic. This was already her third driverless ride-hailing trip of the month, and she had gotten used to editing her PPT on the way, without having to watch the road or worry about drivers taking detours.

如果把时间倒回120年前，这种场景会被当成科幻小说里的情节：1908年，第一辆量产汽车福特T型车才刚刚下线，全世界的汽车保有量不到10万辆，连柏油路都没几条，更别说「无人驾驶」了。可就是从那时候起，第一份和自动驾驶相关的专利诞生，人类关于「不用人开的车」的脑洞，就再也没停过。

If we turn back the clock 120 years, this scene would be treated as a plot from a sci-fi novel: In 1908, the first mass-produced car, the Ford Model T, had just rolled off the assembly line, and the global car ownership was less than 100,000. There were barely any paved roads, let alone "driverless cars". Yet it was from that time that the first patent related to autonomous driving was born, and human imagination for "cars that don't need a driver" has never stopped since.

从科幻脑洞到街头落地，自动驾驶这120年的路走得跌跌撞撞，撞过车、烧过钱、被质疑过无数次是「骗局」，可它还是在最近几年突然火了：无人网约车在10多个中国城市落地，特斯拉的FSD Beta在北美推送，国内的理想、小鹏、蔚来都在抢着落地L3级自动驾驶，连传统车企奔驰、宝马都开始卖带自动驾驶功能的车。为啥以前只在科幻片里看到的东西，现在突然就跑到大街上了？今天我们就从头捋一捋，顺便把大家最常问的几个问题说清楚：自动驾驶到底是不是无人驾驶？特斯拉的Autopilot和百度的Apollo到底有啥区别？

From sci-fi concept to street landing, the 120-year journey of autonomous driving has been full of twists and turns: it has crashed, burned cash, and been questioned countless times as a "scam", yet it has suddenly exploded in popularity in recent years: driverless ride-hailing cars have landed in more than 10 cities in China, Tesla's FSD Beta has been rolled out in North America, and domestic carmakers Li Auto, XPeng, and NIO are all rushing to roll out L3 autonomous driving. Even traditional carmakers Mercedes-Benz and BMW have started selling cars with autonomous driving functions. Why is something that was only seen in sci-fi movies suddenly running on the streets? Today we will sort it out from the beginning, and answer the most frequently asked questions: Is autonomous driving the same as driverless driving? What is the difference between Tesla's Autopilot and Baidu's Apollo?

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一、100年前的狂想：第一个自动驾驶专利，和科幻片的第一次联动

The 100-Year-Old Fantasy: The First Autonomous Driving Patent and the First Sci-Fi Crossover

很多人以为自动驾驶是最近20年才有的新概念，其实它的历史比大多数人的爷爷的爷爷还要久。1908年，美国发明家弗兰克·伯恩斯（Frank E. Burns）提交了一份专利申请，内容是在车辆上安装电磁控制装置，让车辆沿着埋在道路下方的金属线自动行驶——这份专利号US895,729A，是人类历史上第一个公开的自动驾驶相关技术专利²。

Many people think autonomous driving is a new concept from the last 20 years, but its history is longer than most people's great-great-grandfathers. In 1908, American inventor Frank E. Burns filed a patent application for an electromagnetic control device installed on vehicles, allowing the vehicle to drive automatically along metal wires buried under the road. This patent, number US895,729A, is the first publicly disclosed patent related to autonomous driving technology².

那会儿连汽车都还没普及，伯恩斯的脑洞完全是「空中楼阁」：当时的道路连电都没有，更别说埋专用的引导线了，这份专利最后也没落地。但它的意义在于，第一次把「车辆可以脱离人类驾驶员控制」这个想法正式摆到了台面上。

At that time, cars were not even popular yet, and Burns' idea was completely a "castle in the air": there was no electricity on the roads at that time, let alone dedicated guide wires buried in the road, and the patent was never commercialized. But its significance lies in the fact that for the first time, the idea that "vehicles can operate without human driver control" was formally put on the table.

随后的20年里，自动驾驶的脑洞开始从专利走向公众视野。1926年，美国发明家弗朗西斯·胡迪（Francis Houdina）在芝加哥的一次展会上展示了一辆无线电遥控的汽车：他在一辆旧车上装了无线电接收器和控制装置，站在几百米外拿着遥控器，就能控制车辆前进、转向、刹车，绕场开了一周，当时芝加哥的报纸头条直接写：「未来的汽车不用司机，坐在后座喝咖啡就行」。

In the following 20 years, the fantasy of autonomous driving began to move from patents to public view. In 1926, American inventor Francis Houdina demonstrated a radio-controlled car at an exhibition in Chicago: he installed a radio receiver and control device on an old car, and standing a few hundred meters away with a remote control, he could control the vehicle to move forward, turn, and brake, driving it around the venue. The front page of the Chicago newspaper at the time directly read: "Cars of the future don't need drivers, you can just sit in the back seat and drink coffee."

这个场景放到现在都觉得酷，但当时的无线电遥控和真正的自动驾驶完全是两回事：遥控器一断信号，车就直接停住，根本没法应对复杂的道路情况。真正让自动驾驶从脑洞变成「可以研究的课题」的，是1939年纽约世博会上通用汽车的「未来城」展区。

This scene would still be cool today, but radio control at the time was completely different from real autonomous driving: once the signal of the remote control was interrupted, the car would stop directly, and could not cope with complex road conditions. What really turned autonomous driving from a fantasy into a "researchable topic" was the "Futurama" exhibition area of General Motors at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

那届世博会的主题是「明日世界」，通用砸了200万美元（相当于现在的4000多万美元）搞了个1.4万平方米的展区，模拟了1960年的美国城市：道路上有专用的自动驾驶车道，车辆沿着电磁引导线行驶，不会堵车，不会出事故，参观者坐在展示车里绕一圈，就能看到「未来汽车自己开」的场景。当时的宣传材料里甚至写着：「到1960年，你就能买到不用人开的汽车」。

The theme of that World's Fair was "The World of Tomorrow", and General Motors spent $2 million (equivalent to more than $40 million today) to build a 14,000-square-meter exhibition area, simulating American cities in 1960: there were dedicated autonomous driving lanes on the roads, and vehicles drove along electromagnetic guide wires, with no traffic jams and no accidents. Visitors could sit in the display car and take a tour to see the scene of "future cars driving themselves". The promotional materials at the time even wrote: "By 1960, you will be able to buy cars that don't need a driver."

当然，1960年大家还是没买到无人驾驶汽车，通用当年的宣传属于「画饼画早了」，但这次展会让自动驾驶第一次进入了大众的视野，不再是少数发明家的脑洞，而变成了大众对未来出行的共同想象。

Of course, people still didn't buy driverless cars in 1960, and GM's promotion at that time was a "pie in the sky", but this exhibition brought autonomous driving into the public eye for the first time, no longer just a fantasy of a few inventors, but a shared imagination of the public about future travel.

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二、从实验室到赛道：那些撞得头破血流的早期探索

From Lab to Race Track: The Bumpy Early Explorations

1950年代到1970年代，是自动驾驶从「科幻脑洞」走向「实验室研发」的关键阶段。1956年，通用汽车发布了第二代火鸟概念车（Firebird II），这辆车号称可以在专用的高速公路上自动驾驶，车头的格栅能接收道路埋设的电磁信号，自动控制方向和速度，当时的宣传片里，车主可以在后座喝茶、看报纸，完全不用管车。不过这个「自动驾驶」只能在专用车道上跑，出了车道直接「失灵」，离真正的无人驾驶还差得远。

From the 1950s to the 1970s, autonomous driving went through a critical stage from "sci-fi fantasy" to "laboratory research". In 1956, General Motors released the second-generation Firebird II concept car, which claimed to be able to drive automatically on dedicated highways. The grille at the front of the car could receive electromagnetic signals buried in the road, and automatically control the direction and speed. In the promotional film at that time, the car owner could drink tea and read newspapers in the back seat, without having to worry about the car. However, this "autonomous driving" could only run on dedicated lanes, and would "malfunction" immediately once it left the lane, which was far from real driverless driving.

同一时期，欧洲和日本也在搞

同一时期，欧洲和日本也没闲着。英国交通研究实验室（TRL）在1960年代捣鼓出了第一辆靠路面下埋设的电缆引导的自动驾驶试验车，最高能跑到80公里/小时，在专用的测试跑道上跑了上万公里，完全不用人操作。不过和通用的火鸟一样，这车离了专用的电缆和跑道，连小区门口都开不出去。日本那边在1970年代也启动了「自动行驶系统」的研发计划，目标是1978年推出能在普通高速上自动驾驶的车，结果到了1978年，技术卡在传感器精度上，连雨天都识别不了车道线，计划直接泡汤。

During the same period, Europe and Japan were also busy. In the 1960s, the UK's Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) developed the first autonomous driving test vehicle guided by cables buried under the road, which could reach a top speed of 80 km/h and ran more than 10,000 km on a dedicated test track without any human operation. However, just like GM's Firebird, this car could not even drive out of a residential area without the dedicated cables and track. In Japan, the Ministry of International Trade