Pony.ai authorized for driverless road tests with unoccupied front row in Beijing

Beijing (Gasgoo)- On November 21, Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area (BJHAD) issued the test permits for second-stage unmanned autonomous driving, and Pony.ai was among the first companies to receive such permit. 

Photo credit: Pony.ai

With the license, Pony.ai is able to conduct driverless road tests with an unoccupied front row, meaning that there will be no safety driver on the passenger seats. 

Specifically, the company is allowed to deploy a fleet of ten self-driving test vehicles in the 60-square-kilometer core area of the BJHAD, covering the complex urban road scenarios of Yizhuang, for autonomous vehicle road tests. The operation will help to improve the efficiency of unmanned technology validation safely and controllably, and gradually expand the scale and scope of driverless road tests.

Notably, according to BJHAD’s detailed enforcement regulations for unmanned road tests released in October 2021, there are three stages of tests to realize truly unmanned driving. To illustrate, autonomous vehicle must go through the three stages, “safety driver on passenger seat”, “empty front row, safety driver on rear row”, and “remote monitor from outside of the car”, to facilitate the development of fully autonomous driving. 

In the “safety driver on passenger seat” stage, with its outstanding autonomous driving technology and fully redundant scheme, Pony.ai has successively obtained the licenses of road test, manned demonstration operation, and commercial operation with its impressive test and review results. The test and review subjects include order volume in distance, safe operation requirements, closed site test, network security test, and so on.