A special press conference on the construction of a benchmark city for the global digital economy in Beijing was held on Feb 11.

Jie Fei, executive deputy director of the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone Office, attended the meeting and summarized its progress from infrastructure to scene applications in the demonstration zone with the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area (BDA) as the core, and revealed the following targets in the first stage.

"The screen can not only display people and vehicles in real time, but also accurately identify red street lights at the intersection," said a South Korean correspondent when he went to the BDA to try out robotaxis.

Currently, the first stage of the demonstration area has completed the construction of its intelligent networked infrastructure, with 12.1 kilometers of urban roads and 10 kilometers of expressways.

The second phase of the demonstration zone is being built around the core area of the BDA, covering 60 square kilometers and a total of 305 intersections to achieve full coverage of its intelligent networked road infrastructure.

The vehicle energy efficiency laboratory and the environmental simulation laboratory of the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center have entered trial operation, and the National Innovation Center of Intelligent and Connected Vehicle has built four domestic test platforms for simulation testing, mapping, network connectivity and information security. 

Daimler's second global R&D center is in operation. The Alte Automotive Design Center is providing vehicle design services for more than 10 new energy vehicle companies. Projects by leading new energy vehicle companies such as Xiaomi and Great Wall have been launched. It is estimated that the output value of intelligent networked vehicle industries will reach 160 billion yuan ($25.28 billion) this year.

Relying on the advantages of the pilot zone's polices, the BDA has taken the lead in releasing a number of innovative policies such as morning and evening peak tests, highway tests, unmanned tests, and commercialization of travel services. 

A total of 225 intelligent network test license plates have been issued, including 120 test license plates for passenger cars, 86 body codes for unmanned delivery vehicles, 4 test license plates for expressways, and 15 license plates for unmanned road tests. The autonomous driving test mileage of participating enterprises in the demonstration zone has exceeded 3.24 million kilometers, accounting for more than 70 percent of Beijing.

Self-driving park rover [Photo/kfqgw.beijing.gov.cn]

In terms of the commercialization of application scenarios, a pilot program for the commercialization of autonomous driving travel services has been opened and the cumulative number of people served has exceeded 80,000.