China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing began piloting driverless taxis in Shanghai today, making such service available to the public for the first time.
After signing up for approval in the Didi Chuxing App, users will be able to test the driverless taxis in certain roads Jiading, Shanghai.
However, the project is still in the testing phase, and each car will still have a safety officer and passengers will have to sign an information responsibility form.
Previously, Didi Chuxing's chief operating officer of its autonomous driving division, Meng Xing, said that Didi Chuxing plans to operate more than 1 million self-driving cars on its platform by 2030.
China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing aims to have 1 million self-driving cars by 2030
Didi Chuxing officially conducted automated driving development and testing in 2016.
In August 2019, Didi Chuxing upgraded its automated driving division to a company.
In May this year, Didi Chuxing announced that its automated driving company closed its first round of funding of over $500 million to increase its investment in R&D and testing.
This is the largest single round of funding for an autonomous driving company in China to date. The investment round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund Phase 2.
This month, Didi Chuxing also entered into a strategic partnership with BAIC to jointly develop a high-level self-driving car.
According to the cooperation agreement signed between the two companies, the focus of the cooperation is in the fields of L4 level and above automated driving and intelligent travel.
In addition to Shanghai, Didi Chuxing has also obtained road test qualifications in Beijing, Suzhou and California.
