WeRide Leads China to First Test Fully Driverless Cars with the Country’s First Remote-control Permit
(July 10, 2020, Guangzhou, China) WeRide, China’s leading L4 autonomous driving company, becomes the first in China and second in the world to test fully driverless cars on open roads, after the company obtained China’s first remote-control permit for road tests of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (ICV).
With this permit jointly issued by Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau, Guangzhou Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau and Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, WeRide is allowed to conduct road tests of driverless vehicles within designated open roads in Guangzhou, adopting multiple redundant measures including 5G-enabled remote control for safety guarantee. It is a big step closer towards WeRide’s goal of the realization of fully driverless mobility service.
Equipped with 5G-enabled remoted control, WeRide’s driverless cars can switch in a timely fashion to remote takeover mode under extraordinary traffic conditions such as temporary adjustment of traffic rules to ban traffic or change to reverse driving. WeRide’s remote-control operators with over 1,000 hours of simulated training under their belt are ready to provide redundant safety guarantee for fully driverless tests.
WeRide becomes the first permit-holder after the strict review of its self-driving technology by the government. Up till now, WeRide’s self-driving fleet has more than 100 vehicles and has reached about 2.6 million kilometers of open road testing, based on which WeRide’s simulation system has accumulated 480,000 scenario data and over 200 million 3D-annotated data. The daily testing mileage on WeRide’s cloud simulation platform could reach millions of kilometers.
WeRide is the first self-driving company in China to apply a 5G network for remote control of a driverless vehicle as early as September 2018. Guangzhou International Bio Island, the country’s first pilot area for 5G-enabled self-driving, has been fully covered with 5G network. Joining hands with China Unicom in the development of 5G+MEC, WeRide will create a platform featuring ultra-low latency, ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-strong computing power, lowering average network latency to 13 milliseconds.
Besides massive self-driving road tests, WeRide has also launched China’s first publicly accessible Robotaxi service in Guangzhou in November 2019. It has been operating on open roads covering an area of 144 square kilometers in Huangpu District and Guanghzou Development District for over 200 days with zero accident, amassing valuable experience for Robotaxi operation. In June 2020, WeRide partnered with Alibaba’s Amap (also known as AutoNavi). Under this partnership, WeRide’s Robotaxi service is available to citizens in Guangzhou through Amap app, one of the most widely used ride hailing apps in China.
Tony Han, Founder and CEO of WeRide said: “Having emerged successfully after over two million kilometers of road testing and two hundred days of safe operation, WeRide’s self-driving system now leads the industry with its technical stability and safety performance and will pursue fully driverless technology in the next two to three years. I’m confident that WeRide will become the first company to provide the public with reliable self-driving Robotaxi service in China.”
With safety as its top priority, WeRide’s goal in 2020 is to further improve technical stability. The first remote control permit for ICV road test in China is another testimony to WeRide’s technical strengths, which also demonstrates the crucial role technical stability plays in self-driving. With the rollout of test of fully driverless cars, WeRide will witness another drastic development of its self-driving technology.
About WeRide
WeRide is a smart mobility company in China that creates leading L4 autonomous driving technologies. We have committed ourselves to new mobility services that will be accessible and beneficial to everyone. WeRide is China’s first L4 autonomous driving technology start-up company to obtain strategic investment from top-tier global automaker. We employ a highly skilled technology team of more than 300 employees globally, 70% of whom are R&D engineers. Established in 2017, WeRide is headquartered in Guangzhou, China, and maintains R&D and operation centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Anqing, as well as Silicon Valley in the USA.
For more information, please visit website: www.weride.ai;
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