The authorities of Beijing have issued a permit for WeRide to test its autonomous buses of common streets. CarNewsChina points out that the vehicles are still restricted by a dedicated “high-level self-driving demo zone” 60 square kilometers large. The WeRide L4 is a bus equipped by Level 4 self-driving hardware, the manufacturer claims. As such, it lacks conventional controls and frees the driver’s cab space in favor of some extra passenger seats.
An unspecified electric powertrain maxes
out at 40 km/h. The bus uses cameras, radars and a LiDAR to
get its bearings and can exchange data with the surrounding transports and
infrastructure objects.
WeRide is a company that was founded in
2017 and specializes in the development of autonomous driving systems. The L4
is not its first project: a robotaxi has been running on the streets near the
WeRide HQ in Guangzhou since 2019. In the spring of 2022, the same city
received a small fleet of self-driving street cleaning machinery.
