China’s first driverless vehicle experiment base likely to settle in North Guangdong

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- The Economic & Information Commission of Guangdong Province has joined hands with several tech enterprises like Huawei, Alibaba and Tencent to carry out driverless vehicle tests with GAC Group who has a blueprint to build a driverless and intelligent-connected vehicle demonstration base, Tu Gaokun, Secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group and Director of The Economic & Information Commission of Guangdong Province, revealed to local media.

Besides, Tu Gaokun also disclosed that Guangdong government plans to construct a driverless vehicle experiment base in North Guangdong Province which may become China's first driverless vehicle experiment base.

It is noteworthy that China has established a national new energy vehicle (NEV) technology innovation center in Beijing. This is the second national technology innovation center in China. The co-developers of the center include a total of 21 China's leading NEV makers and R&D institutions, such as BAIC Group, Geely, BYD, Baidu, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Tsinghua University and China Automotive Technology & Research Center (CATARC), etc.

At the two sessions (13th NPC and 13th CPPCC) this year, "autonomous driving" became a hot word that was frequently mentioned by delegates and local media. Zeng Qinghong, Chairman of GAC Group suggested that authorities should accelerate the legislation related to autonomous vehicle regulation.

Additionally, autonomous vehicle test now has laws and regulations to go by in some cities. On March 1, Shanghai became the second city in China who launched autonomous driving test regulations. Before that, Li Xiaopeng, Minister of China's Ministry of Transport revealed on February 7 that the Ministry was formulating a technical regulation about driverless vehicle operations and had already started building a testing base. Meanwhile, it had united with other relevant departments to draw up documents to guide driverless vehicle tests.