The November Beijing E-Town Innovation Release press conference took place on Nov 25.

The first set of pilot licenses for the commercialization of autonomous driving travel services in Beijing's Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone was issued at the online press conference. [Photo/kfqgw.beijing.gov.cn]

At the press conference, it was announced that Beijing has opened the country's first autonomous driving travel service commercialization pilot and released supporting management policies, bringing domestic autonomous driving from the test demonstration stage to the commercialization stage.

Baidu and Pony.ai are the first companies to be allowed to carry out commercial pilot services. 

They will use 100 autonomous vehicles to carry out commercial pilot services in a 60-square-kilometer area of the BDA. 

According to this management policy, under the premise of ensuring the principle of fair competition in the market, enterprises can adopt a market-based pricing mechanism.

This means passengers can pay to have the vehicles charged after the charging and payment methods are explained to them.