Some are reporting seeing public road tests of fully autonomous cars in China. Baidu, China’s largest search engine, has been seen on public roads in northern Beijing testing the cars. A Baidu executive said that the cars could be ready by the end of the year.
Right now, at least five Chinese or Chinese-invested companies have licences to test driverless cars on public roads in Silicon Valley.
Baidu is testing the driverless carrs on a 3km stretch of road in the city of Wuzhen. Baidu executives actually say that the terrible traffic in China is a serious obstacle to their ability to stay competitive with autonomous driving.
As the general manager of Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group, Li Zhenyu, said “China faces unique obstacles in its efforts to achieve autonomous driving. There are many, many more challenges here.”