Agreements for 12 projects in emerging industries were signed during an investment promotion event hosted by Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone (WHDZ) in Shanghai on Aug 25, including a Dongfeng autonomous driving pilot project, according to local media reports.
According to the agreement, auto manufacturer Dongfeng Motor Co is to develop a fleet of autonomous vehicles consisting of more than 200 vehicles over the next three years. The fleet will be the first of its kind in China and made in cooperation with enterprises including AutoX, DeepRoute.ai and UISEE.
Dongfeng will explore the commercial operation model of autonomous driving using shared travel platforms such as Dongfeng Go.
The company will also make efforts to expand the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Wuhan) Test and Demonstration Zone located in the WHDZ to the core urban areas of Wuhan during the three-year period from 2020 to 2022.
According to WHDZ officials, within this year, the road mileage of the National Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Wuhan) Test and Demonstration Zone will exceed 100 kilometers and become the country's most extensive 5G vehicle infrastructure autonomous driving demonstration zone. The zone uses full 5G coverage for vehicle-road collaborative autonomous driving tests.
The demonstration zone will build an autonomous driving application system with rich utilization scenarios and carry out autonomous driving demonstrations and commercial operations covering autonomous buses, logistics distribution, shared travel, smart parking, automatic valet parking, clean sanitation, port freight and more.
