King Long Obtains China First Test License of Autonomous Driving Vehicle without Steering Wheel

On March 30, the Public Security and Traffic Administrative Department of Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone, Fujian released the first batch of 6 test licenses to King Long and Baidu (3 licenses each), becoming the China first release of test licenses for autonomous driving vehicles without steering wheels. Apolong, the China first commercial autonomous driving bus manufactured jointly by Baidu and King Long through cooperation, took the lead to test in the Pingtan Autonomous Driving Vehicle Test Base.

Public Security and Traffic Administrative Department releases licenses to King Long (Chairman of King Long Xie Siyu receives licenses)

Public Security and Traffic Administrative Department releases licenses to Baidu (Vice President of Baidu Zhao Cheng receives licenses)

With the road test licenses, the related autonomous driving vehicles can perform the autonomous driving road test in the Pingtan Autonomous Driving Vehicle Test Base. According to the planning, the west segment of Qilin Avenue in the mid-west area of Pingtan Island is chosen as the first stage test ground in full length of >6km. This road is constructed with supporting facilities, including new energy charging piles and high-speed mobile information communication base station, to provide basic supports for the test of autonomous driving vehicles.

To implement the development orientation of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the “One-island, two-window, and three-zone” of Pingtan, Fujian and the opinion spirit of Fujian provincial committee and government on further acceleration of Pingtan openness and development, the Party and Industry Committee and the Management Committee of Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone, in accordance with the instructions of the Governor Tang Dengjie and the spirit of provincial government special meeting, grasped the opportunities, took immediate actions, made breakthroughs and innovations, and performed field commanding, under the great supports of Fujian Automotive Industry Group, King Long, and Baidu and through the cooperation of >20 governmental departments and enterprises, to officially launch the autonomous driving vehicle test today after 15-day hardworking day and night, which was 2.5 months ahead of the original schedule. Henceforth, the autonomous driving officially started the road test in Fujian.

Since this year, the autonomous driving is speeding up the development in China. After the release of the China first local autonomous driving law, Shanghai and Beijing released the first batch of autonomous driving licenses in succession. Under the support of the policy, more and more autonomous driving vehicles are driving from labs and enclosed parks towards open roads, which will vigorously boost the autonomous driving vehicle into high-speed development course. This time, the release of Fujian’s first batch of autonomous driving test licenses to King Long and Baidu manifested the recognition of Fujian provincial government on the autonomous driving technology and safety of King Long and Baidu and also indicated one progress step of home-made autonomous driving vehicle towards mass production and commercialized operation.

In recent years, King Long performed extensive layout and unremitted exploration in terms of intelligence, networking, electrification, and sharing of vehicles. In 2017, King Long partnered with Baidu to march into the autonomous driving field of commercial vehicles. Till now, two parties has released the sophisticated technologic achievement, the China first commercial autonomous driving bus Apolong, which gained the extensive attention from the industry. Since the official launch in November, 2017, Apolong has been put into operation in Xiong’an New District and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in succession to demonstrate the powerful strength of L4 autonomous driving commercial vehicle and the extensive prospect in the commercial application field. In accordance with the strategic cooperation plan, Apolong will realize the mass production and trial operation within this year.

The government work report in the NPC & CPPCC this year put forward the “Enhancing new generation artificial intelligent R&D and application”. As a practitioner in the autonomous driving commercial vehicle field, King Long will work with partners to booster the R&D and application of new generation artificial intelligence in the bus field to earlier come true the intelligent transportation of the public.