Moderation Team
Chinese self-driving car startup AutoX Inc. – a company that also has a presence in Silicon Valley has launched a publicly available robotaxi ride-hailing service in Shanghai.
The service, initially available in Shanghai’s Jiading District – a district with a population of 1.47 million people can be booked through Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.’s AutoNavi smartphone app or through the Letzgo app.
AutoX has struck a strategic partnership with Letzgo for the service to allow its robotaxis to be hailed via their app. Notably, Letzgo, based in Shanghai with operations in 18 cities in mainland China is owned by Volswagen AG. Under the deal, AutoX provides its “AutoX Driver” platform of robotaxis while Letzgo will run daily fleet operations.
It wouldn’t be 2020 without a reference to COVID-19 and AutoX doesn’t disappoint. AutoX has taken special precautions to keep riders safe with customers only needing to say the last four digits of their cellphone number to a voice recognition system within the vehicle to start their journey. During the trip, passengers can monitor their progress with an internal screen with objects around the vehicle are also displayed so that they can understand how an autonomous vehicle perceives the world and makes decisions.
The launch in Shanghai is the start for AutoX with the company already testing its Robotaxi services in Shenzhen, Wuhan and Wuhu as well as several other cities around the world with plans to launch commercial services in those cities in the coming months.
While not listing the cities it’s currently trialing its services in outside of mainland China, the company has previously tested autonomous food delivery services in San Jose, California and was reported in 2018 to be looking at providing services in Mountain View and Palo Alto. AutoX also claims to have provided the first robotaxi ride in California in July 2019.
AutoX has raised $160.1 million in venture capital funding according to Crunchbase from a variety of investors with Alibaba’s Entrepreneurs Fund most notable among them.
Source: siliconangle.com
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