Alibaba-backed AutoX has successfully completed 100 days of commercial operation of its fully driverless RoboTaxis on the roads of Shenzhen, China’s densest city.
The launch of AutoX’s fully driverless RoboTaxi in January 2021 was a major milestone for the company as it provided the first commercial self-driving taxi service in China and the second worldwide.
Professor Jianxiong Xiao, the founder and CEO of AutoX explained that this product will revolutionise the automotive industry as we know it.
“The first 100 days have been a huge step forward for us and for the entire industry in China,” he said. “We have learned so much from the feedback from our passengers about how to continuously improve our service to make the driverless journeys a fantastic experience.”
Shenzhen is the first and only city in China where fully driverless cars can operate on public roads. Beijing, by contrast, only allows autonomous driverless vehicles to operate with a “backseat safety driver” present in the second row or co-driver seat and vehicles may only drive within closed campuses or zones.
The city government of Shenzhen announced recently that it will pass legislation permitting Level 4 self-driving cars on its streets, making it the first city in China to do so.
To mark this exciting news, AutoX also released a two-hour video of its fully driverless RoboTaxi continuously driving. The images show the impressive capabilities of the car as the RoboTaxi can easily drive near other vehicles and cyclists that drive in the opposite direction, nudge around illegally parked vehicles and oversized trucks, handle aggressive cut-ins by other vehicles, change lanes and even drive on the opposite lane to bypass other vehicles, and avoid motorcyclists violating traffic rules.
AutoX will continue to improve and expand its product offering by introducing new features and capabilities of its RoboTaxi service. In particular, AutoX will upgrade its sensor hardware system of the fleet to the latest version – the AutoX Gen 5 setup – which will include six high-resolution lidars and eight high-resolution 4D imaging radars.
AutoX is just one company that it is working on developing a fully autonomous vehicle as we reported that Oxbotica is also developing its software in the UK.
