Autonomous vehicle vendor DeepRoute.ai has started offering robotaxi service in Wuhan, China.
The project will be led by Dongfeng Motor and 42 self-driving vehicles have already been deployed with 26 of them powered by DeepRoute.ai.
The company has been conducting tests in Wuhan since late 2019 and has not had a single accident during the testing. Dongfeng said it would deploy a fleet with at least 200 autonomous vehicles together with its partners including DeepRoute.ai by 2022, expanding the test zone to core urban areas of Wuhan.
In addition to Dongfeng, DeepRoute.ai has partnered with Caocao Mobility, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle and Xiamen Yuanhai Container Terminal to test and operate self-driving vehicles. The fleets operate in Wuhan, Hangzhou and Xiamen.
“Whether our products can meet the needs of the industry or not is the key to deploying self-driving vehicles,” said Nianqiu Liu, vice president of DeepRoute.ai. “Opening robotaxis to the public will help us find user needs and improve the quality of large-scale operations. In the future, we’ll deepen cooperation with our partners, expand robotaxi services and bring new technologies to automotive and mobility industries.”
In the video, a customer uses a smartphone app to hail a Dongfeng robotaxi with DeepRoute.ai technology and a trip is taken to a destination in Wuhan. During the journey, the technology that powers the self-driving vehicle demonstrates how it identifies other vehicles and pedestrians through its perception engine.
