AutoX is the first company to deploy completely driverless vehicles on China’s streets

What just happened? China’s Shenzhen City is aiming to position itself as a city of the future. Back in 2017, the city converted its entire public bus fleet to electricity, and now, it’s penned a deal with AutoX that will allow the company to let loose its own fleet of self-driving RoboTaxis onto Shenzhen’s streets.

This is a huge milestone for both AutoX and China. Other companies have been testing driverless car tech in the country, but they’ve always had safety drivers. This is the first time a company has convinced China’s leaders to let them nix the human element and rely entirely on machine vision and AI.

You can watch AutoX’s self-driving vehicle tech in action through the video below. It’s a montage video intended to show off AutoX’s tech in the best possible light. It shows the car delivering a package (and even a dog), transporting awestruck passengers, and handling tricky situations — like pedestrians suddenly crossing the street in front of it — with ease.

We’ve covered AutoX in the past and have even discussed these exact plans. While the company has technically missed the initial Q3 deadline it set for putting its driverless cars on China’s streets, it didn’t miss it by much. That’s pretty impressive given how many Covid-19-related hurdles AutoX undoubtedly had to jump through to make this happen.

We look forward to seeing how AutoX’s China ambitions progress over time. Right now, its RoboTaxis are in a Closed Beta, of sorts — only select passengers can take a ride in one. However, eventually,