Beijing's self-driving vehicle test mileage tops 3m km

BEIJING - The safety test mileage of Beijing's self-driving vehicles has exceeded 3 million km to date, equivalent to going about 75 times around the equator.

Currently, the city has 226 routes for testing self-driving vehicles, totaling approximately 752.4 km, said Beijing Innovation Center for Mobility Intelligent (BICMI) Co Ltd.

Beijing has issued temporary car plates to 99 vehicles from 15 companies including domestic internet giant Baidu and Chinese ride-hailing platform DiDi Chuxing. Among these companies, Chinese autonomous vehicle startup Pony.ai, and Baidu have received permits to test their driverless cars with passengers aboard.

In the terms of the number of companies applying for self-driving road tests, total unmanned vehicles and the mileage of such road tests, Beijing ranks first in the country, the BICMI said.