China opens up more roads for testing autonomous cars

HONG KONG: China is pursuing its ambition to become the world leader in autonomous vehicles with Hengqin, an island connected to Macau, opening up its 330km road network for the testing of self-driving cars.

This island in the southern city of Zhuhai becomes "the latest Chinese district to embrace autonomous driving technology," reports the South China Morning Post.

In September 2022, 22km of Hengqin's roads were made available for testing robotaxis.

This was extended by 80km in a second phase, then by 93km in a third phase.

The latest opening added a further 135km, bringing the total to 330km of road for testing driverless vehicles.

The complete opening of the road network, which includes various traffic scenarios, will help Chinese autonomous car manufacturers to amass more comprehensive data to improve their algorithms and autonomous driving technologies.

Several major Chinese cities have already opened their roads to robotaxis, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen — the pioneer in 2021 — and Wuhan.

Wuhan has authorised 500 Baidu driverless cabs to operate on 35% of its roads, including in the city centre.

The United States, which is similarly advanced in the adoption of autonomous vehicles, is seeing companies like Waymo, Cruise and Aurora test their robotaxis in cities like New York, San Francisco, Phoenix, and in the Dallas area.

The gradual deployment of robot cabs in China is reminiscent of efforts in the US, where the authorities have sometimes introduced regulations favorable to these innovations, such as the requirement for a "safety-person," a driver ready to take the wheel should the need arise.

According to figures from BloombergNEF, quoted by France Stratégie, by 2030, China is expected have the world's largest fleet of robotaxis, with some 12 million vehicles, compared with 7 million in the United States.