Beijing releases licenses for self-driving car road testing

Beijing released its first temporary license plates for Baidu’s self-driving vehicles for public road testing on Thursday.

The capital city has opened 33 roads with a total length of 105 kilometres for autonomous car testing outside the Fifth Ring Road and away from densely-populated areas on the outskirts.

According to regulations for managing road testing for self-driving vehicles, autonomous vehicles are eligible for public road testing only after they have completed 5,000 kilometres of daily driving in designated closed test fields and passed assessments.

The test vehicles must be equipped with monitoring devices that can monitor driving behaviour, collect vehicle location information and monitor whether a vehicle is in self-driving mode.

Test drivers must have received no less than 50 hours of self-driving training.

Beijing has built its first closed test fields in Haidian District covering about 13 hectares.

The licenses for road testing are valid for 30 days and license holders can apply for renewal after self-driving cars pass assessments.