Why China Is Testing Its Autonomous Cars On U.S. Roads

Chinese companies are aggressively developing autonomous vehicles. In August, the country announced that it had issued 16,000 test licenses for driverless cars and opened around 20,000 miles of roads in China for autonomous vehicle testing. But China-based autonomous vehicle companies have also quietly been testing their technology on U.S. streets. AV companies Didi, WeRide, Pony.ai, Baidu and AutoX logged over 1.6 million test miles in California between 2017 and 2023, gathering valuable data to train their autonomous vehicle algorithms. These same companies also established research labs in northern California, right alongside many U.S. companies working on driverless car technology. But now, the U.S. government has proposed a ban on Chinese and Russian connected vehicles due to national security concerns, putting the future operations of these companies in the U.S. into question.

Chapters:
0:00 – Introduction
2:11 – U.S. presence
6:21 – Why are they here?
12:14 – Protecting American interests
16:54 – What will this ban mean?

Produced and Edited by: Magdalena Petrova
Animation: Jason Reginato
Supervising Producer: Jeniece Pettitt
Additional Footage: Getty Images
Additional Sources: Nikkei Asia

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Why China Is Testing Its Autonomous Cars On U.S. Roads