SAIC Motor, NIO get China’s first autonomous test plates

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- This morning, Shanghai municipal government announced at a conference that SAIC Motor and NIO have got China’s first batch of license plates for the public road test of intelligent-connected vehicles (ICV), which was accredited by the third party organization and expert group. 

At the conference, the government also introduced the regulation of Shanghai ICV test (hereinafter as regulation) which was jointly issued by Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information, Shanghai Municipal Police and Shanghai Municipal Transportation Commission on February 27 this month.

According to the real-life road conditions in Shanghai and the evaluation made by the third party organization, Shanghai government has currently designated a 5.6-kilometer road with high security and low risk in Jading District as the first-phase testing road of ICV in Shanghai. In the future, the government will open more roads step by step for ICV test.

The regulation, released to accelerate the R&D and application of ICV technologies and guide relevant units to operate ICV test, stipulates the application criteria for having an ICV test, including testing organizations, tested vehicles and testing drivers. In addition, the regulation also defines and elucidates the application procedure and verification of ICV test as well as the accident handling methods and the liabilities for violating the regulation.

In December last year, Beijing relevant authorities had released two documents saying that qualified companies in China would be able to test their autonomous vehicles on certain roads and under certain conditions. Identical with Beijing's documents, Shanghai's regulation also explicates that the testing company should submit a guarantee of traffic accident compensation or buy a traffic accident liability insurance with a value of no less than RMB 5 million.

Different from Beijing's regulation, Shanghai government emphasizes on the testing companies' abilities of ICV-related businesses and their event recording and analysis capabilities. Meanwhile, it requires the testing unit to possess a remote monitoring data platform for the tested vehicles.