Driverless cars ready for hire in suburban Beijing

Reports on Monday announced that driverless taxis are now available for hire in a suburban area of Beijing. This marks an important milestone in the world of intelligent transport. Chinese tech company Baidu and autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai have been given permission to run fully driverless robotaxi services in the city. This is the first time that a fully autonomous fleet of vehicles has been allowed to operate in a big city without human drivers onboard. Both companies have 10 autonomous vehicles operating in a 60-square-kilometer area in the southern suburb of Beijing. Baidu plans to expand its autonomous ride-hailing services to 65 cities in 2025 and 100 in 2030. Experts predict that the market for China’s self-driving taxi service could reach 1.3 trillion dollars by 2030. While there are still some limitations due to complex road conditions and lack of legal regulations, improvements in technology will likely lead to wider use of driverless vehicles in the future.

Sources: CGTN
Photo Credit: CNBC