Beijing in fast lane, reveals plans to usher in driverless vehicle deployment
- China's capital city wants to eventually greenlight the path for driverless public buses and taxis.
Beijing on Tuesday passed new regulations to permit autonomous driving technologies on vehicles in use on city roads. Any vehicle that has passed road testing and safety assessments will be allowed to move into road trails, reported Reuters, citing information from China's Beijing Daily newspaper.
China has been backing new-age technologies that allow vehicles to be operated without - or with minimal - human input. The new set of regulations are extremely significant because permitting driverless vehicles in an otherwise bustling metropolitan may also show the level of advancements achieved.
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The new regulations will come into effect from April 1 and will be a major shot in the arm for various companies that are working in the field of autonomous vehicles or technology. These include Apollo Go, a subsidiary of technology giant Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide, AutoX and SAIC Motor . Even Tesla plans to bring in its full self-driving (FSD) to China in 2025 and will start production of its Cybercab - in the US initially - from 2026 onwards.
According to various media reports, as many as 19 cities in China have already given approvals for trials of autonomous taxis and buses.
In Beijing in particular, the new set of regulations will eventually also cover autonomous buses and taxis for public transportation means.
Pros and cons of autonomous vehicles
Autonomous vehicles promise to take the world by storm over the next few years. Autonomous drive technology currently is classified under five levels - Level 1 to Level 5. At its most basic, it incorporates cameras to assist basic driving functions. At Level 5, a vehicle does not even require the presence of a human in the driving seat.
Backers of autonomous driving technology, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, claim that driverless vehicles are safer than those being driven by humans because these vehicles are able to negate chances of human errors while minimising human effort. But critics argue that the technology is incapable of assessing the highly dynamic conditions of the real world. There is also an argument put forth that such vehicles will come at the cost of jobs for actual people.
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