WeRide obtains permit for autonomous driving tests in US

The California Department of Motor Vehicles recently issued a permit authorizing Huangpu enterprise WeRide to test autonomous vehicles without safety personnel on public roads in San Jose.

This makes WeRide the world's first startup to obtain authorization to conduct autonomous driving tests in both China and the United States. The enterprise will exert the advantages of the two countries in technology, talents and policies to push forward the commercial operation of self-driving vehicles, said Han Xu, founder and chief executive officer of WeRide.

Founded in 2017, WeRide is a domestically leading smart mobility company with L4-class autonomous driving technologies, which allow the car to handle all aspects of driving in most circumstances with no human intervention. It is the first self-driving company to obtain strategic investment from top-tier global automakers like Alliance Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and Yutong Group.

WeRide's Robotaxi fleet.

The company launched China's first ever publicly accessible Robotaxi service in Guangzhou in November 2019, which covers 144.65 square kilometers of open urban roads in Huangpu district.

Guangzhou, China's first city authorized for autonomous driving tests, issued the first permit in the country to WeRide in July 2020, which allowed it to conduct test runs of its self-driving vehicles.

As of April, the self-driving test mileage of WeRide has exceeded 100,000 km. In a road test last year, one of its driverless cars completed a 2-hour, 80.4-km test on open roads in Guangzhou with no break.

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