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.
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