Pony.ai receives permit to deploy fully autonomous vehicle

Pony.ai has been issued a fully driverless autonomous vehicle road test permit by the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone. This applies to ten driverless robotaxis for testing in specific locations. They can be tested in challenging urban traffic scenarios across a 20 square kilometer area in the pilot zone in Yizhuang, Beijing.

The autonomous vehicles will be tested without anyone in the vehicle; a safety officer will monitor the test vehicles remotely.

In addition to receiving the driverless permit in Beijing, Pony.ai is also currently testing fully driverless vehicles in Guangzhou, laying the groundwork for future driverless applications and commercial operations.

Over the past year, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone has announced a number of autonomous driving policies in succession. In October 2021, the pilot zone opened up autonomous driving unmanned road tests for the first time and divided “autonomous” testing into three stages.

The first one is that nobody is behind the steering wheel but a safety operator in the passenger seat. Then the second stage is, “nobody in the front row, but with a safety operator in the back row”. Finally, the last one is that it is going to be fully driverless.

The issuance of this permit represents that autonomous testing in Beijing has entered the third stage of “fully driverless”.