Apr 13, 2021|

JD Joins Beijing’s V Partner Plan of High-level Self-driving Pilot Zone

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by Yuchuan Wang

JD Logistics has joined Beijing’s V Partner Plan of the city’s high-level self-driving pilot zone. The announcement was made on Apr. 13 at an event which also announced the establishment of a policy-priority test site in Beijing for autonomous driving vehicles. It is the city’s most recent push to build China’s first high-level self-driving pilot zone. Other V Partners include Baidu, Didi Chuxing, BAIC, Daimler, Audi and more.

The policy-priority test site will formulate product standards and regulations for unmanned delivery vehicles covering researching traffic rules and management models and entitling right of way.

In late 2019, JD Logistics became the world’s first company to apply Level-4 autonomous driving technology on public roads without any human interaction and has since put it into large-scale daily operation. In October 2020, JD announced it would deploy 100 autonomous delivery vehicles in Changshu, Jiangsu province, to facilitate the building of a smart city.

JD Logistics became the world’s first company to apply Level-4 autonomous driving technology on public roads

“Autonomous delivery vehicles can be applied in last mile scenarios far beyond the logistics industry, such as food delivery,” said Qi Kong, chief scientist of autonomous driving at JD Logistics. This also matches the vision of Beijing that the city hopes last-mile delivery vehicles to expand use scenarios to include retail, security and other comprehensive commercial applications to drive the “unmanned economy”.

The policy-priority test site spans an area of 225 square kilometers in Yizhuang, the capital’s economic-technological development area and Daxing International Airport. In addition to urban roads, expressways and highways will be gradually opened for autonomous driving tests. The test site will also encourage enterprises to trial entirely driverless models.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

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