The Shanghai Municipal authorities this week issued the first in a new series of permits allowing carmakers to conduct more advanced operational tests on smart and connected vehicles, to help speed up the commercialisation of assisted and autonomous driving technologies.
The permits were issued to SAIC Motor, BMW and local car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing at the 2019 World Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem Conference held in Shanghai.
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Each permit holder will be allowed to operate a fleet of up to 50 vehicles to conduct operational tests in real driving conditions in the city with a view to testing and bringing the latest technology to market.
The new permits allow for tests to be conducted on a much broader range of technologies and on more autonomous driving scenarios than were allowed by previous permits issued in 2018, in the hope that this will bring assisted and autonomous driving closer to reality.
Eleven companies were awarded the old permits last year by the city's authorities.
In March 2018 Shanghai opened its first road section for testing smart and connected vehicles and now has 53.6km of roads designated for autonomous and connected car tests covering 1,580 different driving scenarios.
In the current system, permit holders can apply to expand their test fleets after six months if the first phase is problem free.
