Shanghai is set to become the first city in China to allow self-driving heavy goods vehicles on its streets following the awarding of a road test license to autonomous truck firm TuSimple.
From our friends at TechNode:
The company was awarded the license on October 16, according to local media.
In March, Shanghai issued its first batch of licenses for autonomous vehicle (AV) road tests to SAIC Motor, BMW and NIO. As of the end of September, AVs had driven over 15,000 kilometers on the city’s roads.
Shanghai’s Municipal Economic and Information Committee has said that no collisions have occurred in that time and testing has not affected traffic flow in the city.
Phew, because if memory serves, there were quite a few collisions last time autonomous robot vehicles took to Shanghai’s streets:
We’re sure TuSimple will be cool with us making this association with their testing of self-driving vehicles on the city’s roads as they look to, ahem, transform China’s transportation industry.
The announcement of the tests in China comes as electric big rig manufacturers in the US — including Tesla of course — set their sights on having vehicles commercially available by 2020. TuSimple, who say their trucks have the “industry’s first 1,000-meter perception system”, have been working in the field since 2015 and also have plans to run tests in Arizona.
Here’s some more background on their work:
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