Motors Tracker

  German auto giant Volkswagen will begin road testing self-driving cars in VW's first such pilot in the globe's largest car market to run eventual travel services in Hefei in East China from next month, with the passenger-bearing tests to open to the public at large next year, Shanghai Securities News reported. The government of Hefei, a relatively less developed city in China's Yangtze River Deltawhich is the capital of Anhui province, issued its first autonomous vehicle test license to Beijing-based Volkswagen Group China yesterday. China is a fertile ground for driverless vehicle pilots. Toyota-invested Pony.ai, Baidu, Nissan-backed WeRide and Didi Chuxing are all trialing self-driving cars in various cities there as carmakers and tech firms plow billions into the new technology, Reuters reported yesterday. The fleet serving the testing project comprises VW brand Audi's e-tron electric sport utility vehicles. The 16 square-kilometer trial area, which includes a 80-k...

Didi Chuxing, China’s biggest car-hailing firm, is taking the lead in preparing the world’s first operational and safety rules for the entry of self-driving taxis into the mass market, the 21st Century Business Herald reported today. Other big players in the autonomous vehicle sector, such as Baidu, Tencent Holdings and BAIC Motor, as well as government departments, experts and research institutions are all contributing to the discussions, it added. The first meeting was held online two weeks ago, a participant told the newspaper. It discussed standards for the management of vehicles, passenger safety and requirements for test drivers. Didi Chuxing, which has eight years of experience in online car-hailing operations, is in a better position than most to give advice and can compile a mass of data for simulation training, an industry insider said. Robotaxis are already available along certain routes in some Chinese cities. Didi Chuxing has a fleet in Shanghai that it introduced in J...

China's self-driving car startup TuSimple and US truck manufacturer Navistar International will cooperate to jointly develop Level 4 autonomous trucks and achieve mass production by 2024, TuSimple said in a statement on its website yesterday. San Diego-based TuSimple has maintained technical cooperation with Illinois-headquartered Navistar for more than two years since it secured investment from it in 2017, according to corporate information platform Tianyancha. Their partnership is the most in-depth between start-up driverless companies and original equipment manufacturers, and also the only one on L4 driverless trucks. “Navistar’s strategic partnership with TuSimple positions us to be a leader in developing solutions for our customers by leveraging our organizations’ collective expertise to integrate our vehicle design and systems integration capabilities with TuSimple’s innovative autonomous technology,” Persio Lisboa,Navistar's chief executive, said in a press release annou...

Chinese startup WeRide, backed by the Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance, has received the country's first license to test fully autonomous vehicles on open urban roads, according to an insider. Guangzhou's regional government gave WeRide the country's first and the world's second remote-control permit, the Paper reported, citing an employee at the company based in the same city. That means that no one needs to be sitting in the driver's seat during the tests. Founded in 2017, WeRide is developing a level-4 driverless solution that means that the vehicle can handle most of the driving by itself but a human can still request control. The startup is competing with larger Chinese companies such as Baidu and Didi Chuxing on bringing autopilot cars onto city streets. But the startup has scored some early wins. WeRide launched the country's first autonomous taxi service in Guangzhou last November. It developed a remote-control solution, based on fifth-generation wirel...

Yicai Global got a taste of the future of travel by testing ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing's new self-driving service pilot in Shanghai's Jiading district. After signing up, consumers can place orders via the firm's mobile application. The cars are equipped with more cameras and sensors and can furthermore be spotted on the streets by an 'autonomous driving' banner. Users must scan a QR code inside the vehicle before it can start moving. For safety, the cars will still come with a driver who is supposed to keep their hands off the wheel as long as everything goes right. The "drivers" have gone through up to a two-month training to use the vehicles. The passenger can follow road conditions and the route via a display inside the car.