DiDi said to conduct road tests for autonomous vehicles in Beijing

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (DiDi) set up in April a Beijing-registered company dubbed Beijing Woya Technology Co.,Ltd., according to the business data search platform Tianyancha.

The newly-established company is wholly owned by Shanghai DiDi Woya Technology Co.,Ltd, which is held as to 90% by Cheng Wei, founder and CEO of DiDi, and 10% by Zhang Bo, DiDi's CTO. Wei Junqing, CTO of DiDi's autonomous driving company, serves as the new firm’s legal representative.

Beijing Woya will work on the following businesses: the car rental and leasing services, the sale of communications equipment, electronic products and auto parts, as well as the technology transfer and development, etc.

(Photo source: DiDi)

After reached by a local media outlet, DiDi revealed that it plans to conduct autonomous vehicle tests in the Chinese capital.

In last August, DiDi hived off its autonomous driving unit as a separate company run by CTO Zhang Bo. But its R&D of the emerging technology could data back to 2016, when it decided to form its own self-driving technology team.

Unveiled in Feb. 2018, DiDi's autonomous vehicles have been qualified to be tested on open roads in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and California. In Sept. 2018, the company obtained T3 plates for autonomous vehicle road tests. License plates used in the autonomous driving road tests of Beijing have five levels, from T1 to T5. The T3 shows that the vehicles possess capabilities such as road condition recognition, vehicular traffic laws compliance and emergency disposal.

Moreover, in last September, DiDi obtained the first license plates applied to the demonstration of manned autonomous driving tests in Shanghai.