China’s Ministry of Transport supports legal trials for autonomous car application

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China will encourage local authorities of cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Hebei to launch pilot projects focusing on such cutting-edge technical domains as autonomous driving and V2X (vehicle-to-everything), according to Wu Chungeng, spokesman of China's Ministry of Transport.

The Ministry of Transport has been proactively pushing ahead with the development of autonomous driving as a key area of technical innovation to speed up the construction of China's traffic power, Wu said at a press conference held on October 28.

Apolong autonomous driving bus; photo credit: Baidu

He added that significant progress has been made in the R&D trials and applications of autonomous driving technologies, partly thanks to the ministry's efforts based on the principle of encouraging innovation, tolerating failures, ensuring safety and opposing monopoly.

Companies like Baidu are conducting technical performance tests for Robotaxis in real traffic environment after receiving approval from local governments. Wu noted the ministry encourages cities and companies to extend trails of testing and operating autonomous vehicles in accordance with the law.

As of October 28, Baidu, China's Robotaxi service bellwether, has completed safe autonomous driving road tests for 6 million kilometers and offered over 100,000 passenger-carrying self-driving rides, said the company.

The scale and scope for the application of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) have been further expanded. According to Wu's statement, there have been roughly 6.9861 million vehicles equipped with the BDS, accounting for 96% of the vehicles in road operation. Going forward, the ministry will endeavor to further popularize the BDS and make it cover all businesses of the transport industry.