Shanghai to take lead in promoting ICV passenger-carrying pilot application

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Shanghai released its first batch of license plates for intelligent-connected vehicle (ICV) pilot application to SAIC Motor, BMW and Didi at the 2019 World Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem Conference (WAVE), making itself the first city in China that issued this kind of license.

Companies that were given the demonstration licenses are allowed to deploy their ICVs on urban roads for pilot application, a further step towards the ICV commercial deployment, starting to try some autonomous driving functions with passengers carried on seats.

(Photo source: SAIC Motor)

According to a trial regulation released by Shanghai government a few days ago, companies are allowed to apply the ICV pilot project for up to 50 vehicles. The number can be increased after a 6-month smooth operation.

Shanghai municipal government announced on March 1, 2018 that SAIC Motor and NIO had been given go-ahead to test their ICVs on open roads. Up until now, the megacity has released 26 road test licenses to 11 enterprises in total, including BMW, Tusimple, Momenta, Huawei, autowise.ai and SAIC Volkswagen.

In the meantime, Shanghai has substantially extended the length of roads for ICV testing from 11.1 kilometers to 53.6 kilometers.

Covering an area of 65 square kilometers, the expanded testing zone involves 1,580 testing scenarios in total, versus 350 scenarios for the previous days. Multiple scenarios related to human's livelihood, such as industrial parks, business districts, transport hubs and residential areas, have been embraced into the testing region to date.