Inside a futuristic driverless taxi in Guangzhou

Guangzhou has recently started charging for fully driverless robotaxis in Nansha District since January 2024. Passengers can take a fully driverless robotaxi by placing orders on the PonyPilot+ Application between 8:00 and 22:30 in Nansha.

The Guangzhou government announced the pilot of a driverless taxi service in Nansha District in June 2022. The robotaxi, a self-driving ride-hailing service launched by Nansha-based Pony.ai, commercialized its service with a safety driver behind the wheel in the city at that time. As of today, the company has completed over 28 million kilometers of autonomous driving tests on complex roads.

Guangzhou plans to promote commercialized operation of autonomous vehicles and priorize the operation in the fields of public transportation, including bus and taxi, according to the "14th Five-Year Plan" (2021-2025) for Guangzhou Intelligent and New Energy Vehicle Innovation and Development released by Guangzhou in December 2021. 

In order to develop driverless travel services, automobile enterprises are encouraged to cooperate with operation service providers to take the lead in developing new service industries such as unmanned public transport, unmanned logistics, mobile retail and mobile office based on driverless vehicles.