Shanghai to put driverless robotaxis on roads despite pushback from taxi drivers in Wuhan
- The area designated for ‘fully driverless’ robotaxi services covers a total of 205 kilometres of roads in the Pudong district, including the Pudong International Airport
Shanghai will put the city’s first batch of driverless taxis on roads this month, even as taxi drivers push back on similar plans by Baidu to expand robotaxis in the central city of Wuhan.
The financial and tech hub in eastern China will see robotaxi companies operate their vehicles in the Pudong district as soon as next week, according to Knews, a local media outlet under state-backed Shanghai Media Group.
The report comes a week after Shanghai announced at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference that the city would approve licences for four robotaxi companies – Baidu, AutoX, Pony.ai and SAIC AI Lab – to bring “fully driverless” taxi services to Pudong.
Chen Guofa, an official from SAIC AI Lab, the autonomous driving arm of SAIC Motor, was quoted by local media on Monday as saying the company got the green light to test five vehicles, while it planned to put more than 40 vehicles into service by the end of the year.
Baidu’s autonomous-driving unit has yet to disclose its plans in the city after getting the new licences, while Pony.ai said in a WeChat post earlier this month that customers will “soon be able to” book its robotaxis through its app, without giving a specific date.