Visitors check out WeRide's robobus at the China Import and Export Expo in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province in April 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]
Self-driving company WeRide says it is expanding its global footprint after self-driving permits were approved in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates last year.
Earlier this month, the company, based in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China's Guangdong province, announced the launch of its latest unmanned street cleaning vehicle, SI, and said the product had received orders worth nearly $10 million on its first day of launch.
The company also revealed that the product was also sold in overseas markets.
“Singapore serves as WeRide's launch pad into the Southeast Asian market, and WeRide also aims to expand into developed countries with advanced information infrastructure and sound transportation options, such as Europe, Japan, and South Korea.” said Tony Han Xu, CEO and CEO. In an interview with WeRide.
“We are also looking to explore potentially profitable markets, including Argentina, Brazil and other South American economies. We have already started in the Middle East and are also looking at North African markets, including Morocco, which is close to the Middle East. We're considering it,''' Han said.
Founded in 2017, WeRide is one of the leaders in Level 4 self-driving technology. The company mainly provides solutions for self-driving taxis, minibuses, freight vehicles, sanitary vehicles and advanced intelligent driving.
In December, WeRide officially announced that it had obtained M1 and T1 licenses from the Land Transport Authority of Singapore. M1 refers to the Milestone Test Regime Level 1 license for autonomous vehicles on public roads. T1, on the other hand, refers to his T1 rating license for self-driving cars on public roads.
These two licenses will enable WeRide's RoboBus to conduct extensive testing on Singapore's public roads, covering key areas such as One North and the National University of Singapore.
This follows WeRide's success five months ago in securing a self-driving license to test a variety of vehicles, including robotaxis, on public roads in the United Arab Emirates. This was WeRide's first such license in the world.
Chinese self-driving companies have achieved great momentum in terms of self-driving technology and commercialization. We are increasingly being recognized by businesses and governments around the world for our collective ability to enable autonomous driving on our roads.
“Globally, Chinese self-driving companies have demonstrated strong innovation capabilities and are able to adapt to a variety of driving scenarios in different climates, environments and urban roads,” WeRide Middle East and North Africa said. said Regan Luo, Market Business Development Director.
In the United Arab Emirates, for example, high temperatures make the electronic components of self-driving cars more likely to fail. In response to this challenge, WeRide quickly developed a thermal management system that can effectively perform heat recovery and low-temperature emissions management, Luo said.
Luo added that WeRide was one of the first global self-driving companies to launch robotaxis in the UAE's capital, Abu Dhabi.
By the beginning of this year, the company had conducted research, testing and operations in more than 26 cities around the world. The company has become the only technology company in the world to simultaneously receive autonomous driving permits in China, the United States, the UAE and Singapore.
For years, automakers around the world, especially in the United States and Europe, have been promising a world of self-driving cars, and China is increasingly looking like it could make it happen.
China will become the world's largest market for self-driving cars, with revenue from self-driving cars and mobility services expected to exceed $500 billion by 2030, according to a report from global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. has been done.
By 2030, total revenue from self-driving cars is expected to reach $230 billion, and self-driving vehicle-based services will generate approximately $260 billion in revenue.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by mid-September, more than 15,000 kilometers of test roads for intelligent connected vehicles (mostly self-driving vehicles) had been opened across the country, with a total driving distance of 70 million kilometers. Beyond. Technology has shown.
“China's intelligent connected vehicles have achieved positive results in terms of industrial scale, key technologies and demonstration applications,” MIIT official Guo Shougang said at a recent press conference.
“In particular, a range of key technologies, such as new generations of electronic and electrical architectures, vehicle operating systems, and high-power computing chips, are being applied on a large scale to automobiles.”
