Many companies are hard at work developing self-driving cars that will one day eliminate the need for us to driver ourselves from one place to the other. A lot of work still remains to be done and there are many challenges on the legal and regulatory front as well that need to be addressed before these cars of the future can take to the roads. China has decided to temporary enforce a ban on testing self-driving cars until it passes relevant regulations.
A lot of the work on self-driving cars is being done in the United States and even as the country continues to develop its national regulations for these cars, companies can still test their self-driving cars on the roadways in states that allow them to.
China is going in a completely different direction. It’s placing a blanket ban on all road testing of self-driving cars until the regulations are finalized. Companies will presumably not be barred from conducting tests on premises.
It’s unclear at this point in time how long it will take for the powers that be in China to pass these regulations. An early version of the regulation has reportedly been drafted but there’s no confirmed date yet which confirms when the regulations will be enforced.
Until that happens companies in China that are working on self-driving cars, like local search giant Baidu, will have to keep their autonomous cars off the highways.
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