Autonomous driving tech company AutoX has announced that its RoboTaxi ride-hailing service in Shanghai is, for the first time, open to the general public.
This marks a transit milestone for China’s largest city, where rides can be hailed in the Jiading District. AutoX has reached an agreement with the city’s municipal authorities to allow a fleet of 100 vehicles to operate there.
Customers can book AutoX RoboTaxis through Alibaba’s AutoNavi smartphone app, in similar fashion to other ride-hailing services. To support the launch of its pilot RoboTaxi service to the public, AutoX has also struck up a strategic partnership with Letzgo, a Shanghai-based major taxi fleet operator.
The deal marks a step forward for AutoX’s business model, which will see it provide its ‘AutoX Driver’ platform while Letzgo will run daily fleet operations. The agreement will also allow AutoX RoboTaxis to be hailed through Letzgo’s smartphone app, on top of Alibaba’s AutoNavi app, once the service is fully rolled out on Letzgo in the coming weeks.
Letzgo’s staff will be trained to operate RoboTaxis at AutoX’s Shanghai Operations Center, which opened in April this year. The taxi company operates over 16,000 vehicles in more than 18 cities across China, including Shanghai.
The bustling metropolis is just the first city where AutoX intends to launch its RoboTaxi services. The company is currently also testing self-driving cars in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Wuhu, as well as several other cities around the world, where the service is expected to be launched in the following months.