JD.com, Meituan, Neolix greenlighted to run unmanned delivery cars in Beijing

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, on-demand service platform Meituan, and Li Auto-backed autonomous driving startup Neolix were licensed on May 25 to run their self-driving delivery vehicles on designated public roads at Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (BDA or E-Town), the first companies that received such permit.

Neolix's unmanned delivery car; photo credit: Neolix

The decision was announced at the 8th International Congress of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles Technology (CICV 2021). The vehicles to be tested are code-named JD0001, MT0001, and NX0001 respectively.

According to a local report, JD.com and Meituan have already deployed nearly 100 self-driving delivery cars in delivery stations, residential area and industrial parks to offer end-to-end delivery service. Neolix's cars have also been launched in such locations as Nanhaizi Park, Yicheng International Center, BDA International Enterprise Avenue, and Yongchang Industrial Park to sell foods to pedestrians. 

At the CICV 2021, the regulator of the Beijing High-Level Autonomous Driving Pilot Zone issued the rules on the regulation of unmanned delivery cars. According to Kong Lei, deputy director of E-Town, the rules clearly normalize many technical and testing indexes of unmanned delivery vehicles, including size, load, speed, and power performance. To ensure safety, self-driving delivery cars are required to carry multiple types of sensors, high-performance computing units, drive-by-wire chassis and other intelligent controlling software.

Beijing announced in last September it was building in E-Town a cloud-based pilot zone for high-level autonomous cars that covers 60 square meters and features integrated smart roads, smart vehicles, real-time cloud data transmission, a reliable network, and precise digital maps.