Fully driverless taxi service covers all Pingshan roads

Chinese startup AutoX announced Tuesday that the service area for its fully driverless RoboTaxis has now covered all the public roads in Pingshan District.

The service area for the unmanned RoboTaxis in Pingshan covers 168 square kilometers in total, said the company, which is headquartered in Shenzhen.

The company launched a pilot of fully driverless RoboTaxi service in Shenzhen this January. The service featured no driver behind the wheel and no safety operator in the passenger seat.

No accidents have been reported during RoboTaxi’s trial operations so far, according to Shenzhen Evening News.

“AutoX has set a new record for the largest driverless taxi service area for level 4 unmanned driving systems,” a staffer from AutoX was quoted saying.

As per the classification developed by the SAE International and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the U.S., there are five tiers of autonomous driving capability in cars, namely level 0 for no automation, level 1 with driver assistance, level 2 with partial automation, level 3 with conditional automation, level 4 with high automation and level 5 with full automation.

According to information on AutoX’s website, the company has launched its RoboTaxi fleet in five mega cities around the world, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou in China.

In 2019, the company reached strategic cooperation with Jiading District People’s Government of Shanghai to build China’s first unmanned driving RoboTaxi demonstration zone.