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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Volvo will test up to one hundred self-driving cars in China [reuters.com], using local drivers:

Volvo aims to launch an experiment involving self-driving cars in China in which up to 100 such cars could be deployed, executives at the Swedish automaker said. The planned experiment, expected to be announced on Thursday, will see local drivers test the cars on public roads in everyday conditions but in limited driving situations such as on express roads and highways, they said.

Volvo, wholly owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co [GEELY.UL], is currently scouting for a city that could provide the necessary permissions, regulations and infrastructure to allow the experiment to go ahead, the executives said. They did not say by when it hopes to conduct the tests. The move is part of the Swedish company's efforts to take advantage of the pledges central government policymakers in China, the world's biggest auto market, have made to embrace futuristic technologies such as self-driving cars.

Volvo is also testing self-driving cars in Gothenburg, Sweden next year. Volvo says it is developing the technology as part of a commitment to reach zero deaths or serious injuries in new Volvo cars by 2020 [zdnet.com].

The Boston Consulting Group claims that China will be the largest market for autonomous vehicles [nytimes.com] in 15 years:

In fact, some argue that conditions in China are actually more favorable for quick adoption of driverless cars, in part because of more aggressive support from the national and local governments. And, unlike in the United States, China never fully developed a romance with the open road and car ownership.

[...] Even as American companies like Google and Tesla work on autonomous vehicles, a number of Chinese companies are working on driverless car technology. The Internet company Leshi Internet Information & Technology (better known as Letv) has a driverless car tech unit, and the Chinese carmaker Great Wall Motors has opened a research center in Silicon Valley. The assumed leader in the field in China is the search engine company Baidu, which has been at work on autonomous vehicles since 2013. [...] The Chinese government is playing a major role in the overall driverless market. Along with empowering Baidu to run public transportation, in other cases central and local governments have been investing in research and development for driverless car projects.

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