Currently, Chinese regulations allow driverless robotaxis in designated geofenced areas.
Baidu Inc and Toyota Motor Corp-backed startup Pony.ai will soon be testing fully autonomous vehicles without safety operators as a backup in Beijing. The two companies are among the first to be granted licenses to offer commercial robotaxi services in China’s capital.
The two companies said they would test 10 driverless vehicles in a technology park developed by the Beijing government.
Chinese regulations currently allow Level 4, autonomous driving capability, which does not require a human driver to control the vehicle, in robotaxis that operate within designated geofenced areas. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transportation, published standards for setting up road-test facilities for intelligent automobiles, in 2018. The provinces and cities across China began their own road-testing facilities soon after.
Chinese internet giant, Baidu started offering fully driverless robotaxi rides in August, charging passengers at regular taxi rates. The firm’s robotaxi-hailing app, Apollo Go, completed more than a million rides in Q3, in at least 10 cities across China. The company recently unveiled its Level-4 Apollo RT6, which has a detachable steering wheel.
Startup Pony.ai has been testing autonomous drive systems in Guangzhou, China. The company has also tested autonomous drive vehicles in California and Arizona but with safety drivers in the cars as a precaution.
Tesla’s ‘Full Self Driving’ system also requires a human behind the wheel despite CEO Elon Musk’s claims that the cars are self-driving, which has brought the company under criminal investigation in the United States.
Global consulting firm McKinsey has touted China to become the world’s largest market for autonomous vehicles, with fully autonomous vehicles accounting for more than 40% of the country’s new vehicle sales in 2040, and 12% of the vehicle installed base.
