Southern China Districts Unite For Robotaxi Framework

Four districts in southern China have formed a pilot framework to allow autonomous vehicles to travel across their borders, in a move to push ahead with the development of AV technology, a major application of artificial intelligence (AI).

Guangzhou’s Nansha district, the Qianhai and Bao’an districts of Shenzhen, and Hengqin, an island co-administered by Zuhai and Macau, said the connected vehicle programme would “mutually recognise qualifications, open roads… and synergise regulation” to “further connect the Greater Bay Area”, a statement from Nansha said, referring to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Autonomous vehicles registered in one of the four areas will be enabled to travel across public roads to the other areas, said local media reports citing a social media post from Pony.ai, a Guangzhou-based AV start-up that is one of the four included in the pilot.

Pilot programme

The company said the pilot scheme would allow it to operate its robotaxi service from airports and railway stations across different cities in the region, as well as operating cross-city cargo routes with its self-driving lorries.

The three other firms in the pilot are Baidu’s Apollo Go, ride-hailing platform Chenqi Technology, which also operates robotaxis, and start-up Cowa Robot which produces robotaxis as well as other automated delivery and cleaning vehicles.

The framework is intended to “gradually expand to Hong Kong and Macau”, Pony.ai said.

The pilot is an early effort to make autonomous vehicles more practical by enabling them to operate outside restricted areas within a single city.

Several major cities in China, including Beijing and Shanghai, have programmes encouraging autonomous vehicles to operate within restricted areas, but these are unable to travel to neighbouring cities with their own separate regulatory systems.

Robotaxi rules

US president-elect Donald Trump said in November he is planning to push for federal regulations on self-driving cars.

Electric carmaker Tesla, which announced a robotaxi plan in October, has pushed for such a move, which would make it easier to operate such services across different regulatory regions.