China has so far issued 109 licenses for autonomous vehicle road tests by April

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- By the end of April this year, there were a total of 109 licenses that have been issued to companies across China for their autonomous driving road tests, according to a summary done by AutoInfo, a Chinese automotive information website.

So far, 16 cities have got their enterprises received the licenses, among which Beijing owns the most—up to 59 pieces. The runner-up Chongqing, issuing 12 licenses in total, has attracted a number of applicants with its abundant geomorphic resources. Jiangsu Province released a total of 7 licenses—2 pieces for Wuxi, 3 pieces for Changzhou and 2 pieces for Suzhou.

Part of cities inclined to dispatch more licenses to commercial vehicles (CVs), such as Changsha, Pingtan, Jinan, Changzhou, Baoding and Xiangyang. Some testing areas are specifically chosen for CV makers and technology developers to conduct tests. Up until now, a total of 17 CV-used licenses have been issued to enterprises. Although the percentage is still quite small, autonomous driving R&D over CVs is gaining increasingly more and stronger supports in infrastructures and policies.  

From the time being, 35 companies in total were given the licenses. Baidu possessed nearly 50% of total pieces with its footprints scattering in 5 cities including Beijing (45 pieces), Pingtan (3 pieces), Chongqing (1 piece), Changsha (1 piece) and Tianjin (1 piece).

Technology companies also present a great zeal in road testing self-driving vehicles. Pony.ai, a Guangzhou-based autonomous driving startup, has received 5 licenses, closely following Baidu in terms of license numbers.