Passengers in an autonomous driving bus in Guangzhou Photo: VCG

Chinese regulators on Wednesday issued a notice on the entry and road-testing of intelligent connected cars, aiming to promote the high-quality development of autonomous vehicles while ensuring safety.

The move means that road tests for autonomous driving vehicles will be gradually carried out nationwide under a set of unified national standards, bringing the sector one step nearer full commercialization, experts said.

The notice, jointly announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Public Security, is open for public comment until December 1, 2022. 

According to the notice, the ministries will select qualified car manufacturers and intelligent connected vehicle products equipped with autonomous driving functions to carry out entry tests in selected cities.

The eligible vehicle manufacturers need to have the capacity of designing and verifying automotive products equipped with autonomous driving function as well as the capability to ensure network security, data security, software upgrading and driving security.

For the intelligent connected vehicle products that have passed initial on-road trials will be carried out using restricted public road areas in the selected cities, the notice said.

Pilot cities should have local legal regulations, coordination mechanisms and necessary infrastructure such as in transportation and high-precision maps to be able to carry out the road testing.

The guidelines are expected to accelerate the healthy development of the industry, Zhang Xiang, visiting professor at Engineering Department of Huanghe Science and Technology University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

“It is expected to further accelerate and standardize the industry whereas such work was usually led by local governments,” Zhang said.

Previously at the local level, more than 30 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have issued corresponding management measures and established autonomous driving demonstration zones, Paper.cn reported.

In August, the Ministry of Transport released a set of national guidelines to encourage the use of self-driving for taxi fleets under given conditions, a move that industry analysts said will help speed up commercialization of autonomous vehicles in China.

Autonomous driving is also developing quickly in the logistic industry. Autonomous driving technology company Pony.ai on Tuesday launched the third generation of autonomous truck software and hardware integration system.

The sensors allowed the trucks to identify broken-down vehicles in its front and avoid any obstacles, according to a statement sent by the company to the Global Times.

As of September this year, China has issued more than 1,600 road test and demonstration licenses, opened 8,500 kilometers of roads for testing, China News Agency reported.