According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Founder Securities released a research report stating that unmanned vehicles are gradually gaining attention, driven primarily by their technology maturing and prices dropping to the current lowest level of below 20,000 yuan, which is expected to enable low-cost replacements in manual scenarios. Due to licensing restrictions, most unmanned vehicles cannot charge market prices directly to unspecified users, so the product logic focuses on cost reduction and efficiency improvement as well as stock replacement. According to the bank's estimates, the market size for unmanned logistics vehicles may reach 55 billion yuan by 2030. It is recommended to pay attention to related targets in the unmanned forklift, unmanned logistics vehicle, and parts sectors.

Founder Securities' main points are as follows:

Unmanned vehicles are a type of unmanned intelligent transportation tool that gradually possess commercial value as prices decrease

Unmanned vehicles refer to intelligent transportation tools equipped with environmental perception systems, intelligent decision-making algorithms, and autonomous control modules, which can achieve safe and efficient movement in specific scenarios or open environments without direct human driving. Their core features include unmanned operation, autonomous decision-making, and task orientation. Current unmanned vehicles are essentially unmanned products with a wheeled structure, equipped with upper functional areas or components, mainly managed through remote control or one-to-many supervision. Unmanned vehicles are gradually gaining attention, driven by their technology maturing, with prices dropping from over a million to the current lowest level of below 20,000 yuan, which is expected to enable low-cost replacements in manual scenarios.

Top-level design has been established, and the issuance of commercial licenses is accelerating

China's top-level design for unmanned vehicles on the road is mainly regulatory in nature. In 2021, the "Road Traffic Safety Law (Revised Draft)" first included provisions for autonomous driving. With commercial implementation, it is expected that relevant provisions will be further improved in the future. Currently, local areas mainly conduct free pilot tests based on regulations, and most commercial unmanned vehicles do not hold commercial qualifications but obtain road rights through testing qualifications. On July 20, 2024, according to the "Management Measures for Road Testing and Demonstration Applications of Autonomous Vehicles (2025 Revised Edition)," L4 level highly autonomous vehicles are permitted to conduct commercial passenger and cargo operations across the entire region, and the mandatory requirement for a "safety officer to be present in the vehicle" has been removed for the first time. The issuance of passenger vehicle charging test licenses during the 2025 WAIC conference further accelerated the commercialization of unmanned vehicles, and the issuance of commercial vehicle licenses is a national first.

Sales of new energy vehicles have the potential for nationwide expansion, while the scenarios for unmanned vehicles are more critical

New energy vehicles are primarily To-C, while unmanned vehicles are progressing rapidly in To-G and To-B models. Although the underlying technology is similar, the differences in business models lead to different competitive key points for unmanned vehicles and new energy vehicles. The entry threshold for new energy vehicles is relatively uniform nationwide, while the application scenarios for unmanned vehicles are discrete, with each scenario's entry relying on the scenario's manager. This requires not only product development but also efforts in scenario licensing.

Currently, the main end-user clients for unmanned vehicles are governments and large enterprises due to stock replacement and cost reduction and efficiency improvement needs

Among them, large internet companies have a large number of scenarios for direct interaction with C-end consumers; logistics companies represent the most direct landing scenario for unmanned vehicles as logistics transportation tools; the government plays a role in regulation, guidance, and promotion; in other commercial scenarios, interaction with C-end is less frequent, primarily motivated by cost reduction Due to licensing restrictions, most unmanned vehicles cannot charge unspecified users at market prices, so the product logic mainly focuses on cost reduction and efficiency improvement, as well as stock replacement.

The core driver of cost reduction for unmanned vehicles is the rapid decline in component costs driven by the mass production of the new energy vehicle industry chain.

Around 2018, the price of unmanned vehicles reached over one million yuan, while the lowest-priced Cainiao unmanned vehicle is now below 20,000 yuan. The supply chain required for unmanned vehicles includes intelligent driving technology, cameras, radar, batteries, and other materials. For example, the price of Hesai's lidar has dropped from 100,000 yuan in 2021 to 4,000 yuan in 2024, and it is expected to further decline to the thousand-yuan level in the future; the highest price for automotive-grade cameras once reached over a thousand dollars, but with mass production and functional differentiation, prices have dropped to as low as 120 dollars. Against the backdrop of rapid expansion in related industries, unmanned vehicles have achieved a rapid decline in prices.

Risk Warning: The issuance of commercial licenses is less than expected, cost reduction is less than expected, and technological progress is less than expected