Baidu awarded Californian autonomous vehicle testing permit
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has issued Baidu USA a permit which allows the company to test its autonomous driving technologies in the state.
In a statement issue by Baidu USA yesterday (1 September), Jing Wang, SVP of Baidu and General Manager of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Unit, said: “We will start testing our autonomous driving technologies on public roads very soon in California.
“Baidu has already built a strong team in Silicon Valley to develop autonomous driving technologies, and being able to do road tests will greatly accelerate our progress.”
Baidu USA, a subsidiary of the Chinese internet giant Baidu Inc., is the 15th company to have obtained the permit to operate autonomous vehicles on public roads in California.
Early this year, Baidu announced the formation of an autonomous driving team in the United States. The team is part of Baidu Autonomous Driving Unit that operates in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. In China, meanwhile, Baidu announced in July that it had reached agreement with the Wuzhen Tourism Bureau to initiate a project to bring autonomous cars to the city. Wuzhen is become something of tech hub, since it became the permanent host of China’s World Internet Conference in 2014.
