Search giant Baidu Inc (百度) and Toyota Motor Corp-backed Pony.ai Inc (小馬智行) were granted the first batch of licenses from Beijing regulators to start open-road autonomous commercial driving operations in a part of the city equivalent to the size of Manhattan.
The pilot licenses will allow a fleet of about 100 cars from the two companies to travel around the 60km2 so-called Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area, about a 30-minute drive from Tiananmen Square, state media reports said.
Baidu received 67 of the permits and will allow its robotaxis to range between more than 600 pickup and dropoff points from 7am and 10pm, it said in a statement yesterday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The area includes commercial and residential precincts.
Pony.ai is to set up about 200 points in the zone, running from 8:30am to 10:30pm, the Guangzhou-based company said.
“Beijing, as the capital city and the first one to allow fare charging for robotaxi rides, will help companies accelerate autonomous vehicle deployment and test out and explore a business model,” BloombergNEF analyst Jinghong Lyu said. “It will also benefit industry players across the country as other local governments may follow Beijing.”
Beijing is one of the first places in the world to embark on such a concentrated trial of robotaxis in a commercial environment. Baidu and Pony.ai will be able to charge consumers for the rides, although detail around pricing and payment methods were not immediately available.
However, totally replacing drivers in China, where labor costs are low and the government has a keen interest in maintaining near full employment, would be tough, and not just from a business sense. The nation’s growing, but relatively inexperienced driving population makes for complex and often unpredictable traffic conditions, while varied road rules and street signs across provinces bring more challenges to the technology application.
“The issuing of the permits signifies that the development of autonomous driving in China has completed the testing stage to begin wider commercial exploration,” Baidu said.
Baidu is a leader in the research and deployment of autonomous driving in China, already the world’s biggest market for electric vehicles and car-sharing. It has teamed up with automakers like BAIC Motor Corp (北京汽車) and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (吉利控股集團) to develop autonomous and electric vehicles, while expanding a nascent chip business beyond just in-house applications.
Founded in 2016, Pony.ai develops and operates self-driving fleets in the US and China, and has secured funding from Toyota and China FAW Group Co (中國一汽集團).
Taiwan is to start producing geothermal energy on a commercial scale for the first time in nearly 30 years tomorrow, when an Yilan County facility begins operations. The 4.2 megawatt Cingshuei Geothermal Power Plant in Datong Township (大同) — the first privately built geothermal power plant in Taiwan — was granted commercial license by the Bureau of Energy on Oct. 27, county authorities told the Central News Agency on Tuesday. Lin Kun-wei (林坤緯), a section head at the Yilan Business and Tourism Department, said that the facility would generate up to 3,150 kilowatts per hour, which could meet the demand of up
JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive officer Jamie Dimon on Tuesday quipped that his company is likely to outlast the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while reiterating the bank’s commitment to the country in wide-ranging comments that also touched on Taiwan, free speech and former US president Donald Trump. “We hope to be there [in China] for a long time,” Dimon told a panel discussion at the Boston College Chief Executives Club. Relaying a “joke” he made during a recent visit to Hong Kong, he said “The communist party is celebrating its 100th year. So is JPMorgan. And I’ll make you a
Zero emissions and, soon, zero crew: The world’s first fully electric autonomous cargo vessel was unveiled in Norway, a small but promising step toward reducing the maritime industry’s climate footprint. By shipping up to 120 containers of fertilizer from a plant in the southeastern town of Porsgrunn to Brevik’s port 12km away, the much-delayed Yara Birkeland, shown off to the media on Friday, would eliminate the need for about 40,000 truck journeys a year that are now fueled by polluting diesel. “Of course, there have been difficulties and setbacks, but then it feels even more rewarding to stand here today in front
The Kaohsiung City Government yesterday said it would impose a property hoarding tax as it is seeking to contain speculation in the real-estate market, calling recent price increases “abnormal.” The announcement came in support of the Ministry of Finance’s call for local governments to levy a high tax rate on people with more than one property. Ministry officials on Tuesday discussed strategies to rein in speculation with the nation’s six special municipalities, as well as the Hsinchu city and county governments. About 84,000 out of 1.06 million housing units in Kaohsiung are not residential property, the city government said in a
RSS