Driverless tech needs more local govt say

China should grant more autonomy to local governments to expand autonomous driving and streamline regulatory approvals to accelerate commercialization, said a national political adviser on the sidelines of the two sessions, which ended on Tuesday.

The comments were made as the autonomous driving sector has been developing rapidly, both at home and abroad. United States electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc also strives to expand its full-self driving functions in China.

Zhong Zhangdui, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and a renowned professor of wireless communication at Beijing Jiaotong University, said, "China should fully empower qualified localities to conduct pilot demonstrations, expand support for broader applications across more regions and scenarios, and simplify unnecessary procedures for large-scale deployment."

Zhong said some cities have already launched commercial pilot projects, but the expansion of autonomous vehicle fleets and road network coverage has slowed for various reasons.

"From the supervisory level, some approval processes are still lengthy. Additionally, the boundaries for large-scale commercialization need to be clearly defined," he added.

For example, regulations on road testing and demonstration applications of intelligent connected vehicles allowed local governments to set their own implementation rules, but failed to clarify the boundary between demonstration applications and full-scale commercial operations.

"Also, some key questions remain unanswered, such as how many vehicles can be included in pilot programs and how to define pricing standards. Many regions are still feeling their way forward," he said.

Zhong therefore called for the quick revision and implementation of the law at the national level to grant autonomous driving a proper legal status, clearly define the rights and responsibilities of AI drivers, and better protect the interests of all stakeholders involved in autonomous driving.

He also suggested defining clear risk boundaries for large-scale commercial applications to ease concerns from both government and business.

In China, more than 60 provinces, cities and regions have released guidelines for testing and demonstrations, 35,000 kilometers of roads have been opened for testing, and 10,000 km have been upgraded to accommodate intelligent vehicles in the country.

To date, 16,000 autonomous vehicle test licenses have been issued. As public roads are opened further and coverage increases, public acceptance of autonomous driving has grown. In Wuhan, Hubei province, for example, over 90 percent of those surveyed believe autonomous driving is safer than human driving.

Meanwhile, the US is also accelerating the development of autonomous driving. Waymo, the autonomous driving unit of Google, now provides 175,000 paid rides per week and plans to expand its autonomous vehicle testing to 10 additional US cities by 2025.

Zhong said: "The race in this cutting-edge field is not about technological routes, but about the speed and scale of real-world applications. The larger the application scale, the sooner problems can be identified and solved, which in turn accelerates technological iteration."