Chinese automakers drive Europe toward autonomous future

Having reshaped commutes in China with efficient, safe and intelligent mobility, Chinese self-driving robotaxi companies are now aiming to bring more autonomous taxi services into the daily lives of European residents.

In Shenzhen, residents have grown quite accustomed to having artificial intelligence (AI) behind the wheel. Even during rush hour, autonomous taxis navigate the city's streets, gliding through traffic as if they know every road and alley by heart. The taxis anticipate complex road conditions before they arise and brake the instant something unexpected happens.

Pony.ai and Baidu are two of the major players in China's robotaxi sector, each operating over 1,000 self-driving taxis on public roads. These driverless services are not just changing how people commute -- they're also making cities safer and more efficient.

Now, Pony.ai has its sights set on Europe. It hopes to bring robotaxi services to European cities -- an ambition that's far more complex than it sounds.

Road conditions in Europe differ dramatically from those in China, with streets that are often narrow and challenging to navigate.

"The Chinese autonomous driving companies need to retrain the models. European roads feature very narrow streets and roundabouts is very common. And also a very mixed urban, suburban, rural traffic condition,” said Ron Zheng, a senior partner at management consultancy firm Roland Berger.

Pony.ai has set up base in Luxembourg, in the heart of Europe, to train its models from the ground up, teaching them to navigate roundabouts, cobblestones, and medieval street layouts.

Andreas Reschka, a director of product, systems and safety at Pony.ai, said, "The key thing is really figuring out how do people drive differently, how do they react differently in different situations?"

"We use a lot of generative AI, especially in our simulation environment, to create artificial worlds, to create more test cases," he said.

Europe's journey towards autonomous cars may take years, but in China, the future is already taking shape: some Chinese cities now allow fully driverless taxis on designated roads with no safety driver, and no one in the front seat.

"All those hardware and software and AI designs integrated together to ensure the safety. Our record has shown it's almost 10 times safer than a typical human driver," said James Peng, founder and CEO of Pony.ai.

Beyond passenger transport, China's self-driving trucks are also reshaping the future of freight. These vehicles travel along highways and major logistics corridors, moving goods seamlessly between cities, and around ports and large industrial facilities.

A key reason Chinese companies have been able to develop cutting-edge autonomous driving technology and bring it to market is government support and clear guidance provided by regulators. As these firms set their sights on Europe, that may well be the most important lesson of all.

Chinese automakers drive Europe toward autonomous future

China's latest high-speed train model has reached 450 kilometers per hour in test runs, pushing the frontier of the country's high-end manufacturing and further underpinning its strategy of promoting industrial upgrading through technological innovation.

The CR450 high-speed train, China's newest-generation high-speed train, has completed half of its road tests, marking a milestone for the country's railway industry and reflecting closer integration between manufacturing and research, according to a leading railway scientist.

"Extensive work has been carried out on the CR450 project since 2025, and significant progress has been made. So far, the train has completed about 300,000 kilometers of testing, with more than half of the evaluation process already finished," said Zhao Hongwei, a chief researcher at the China Academy of Railway Sciences.

Developed entirely with independent intellectual property rights, the CR450 also demonstrates stronger resilience in China's industrial supply chains. The project is boosting related sectors such as machinery, metallurgy, electronics and chemicals, as key components are now produced domestically.

"A high-speed train is a highly complex piece of engineering equipment. We estimate it contains more than 40,000 components, along with multiple control systems. These parts come from many different sectors, supported by an entire industrial ecosystem. So projects like this naturally drive the development of the broader industrial chain," said Zhao.

The train also offers a glimpse of the direction China's manufacturing sector is heading for, as the government has pledged during this year's" two sessions" to promote the full integration between technological and industrial innovation.

Speaking at the Ministers' Corridor during the annual meetings, Li Lecheng, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, emphasized the need to translate scientific breakthroughs into tangible industrial progress.

"We will follow the principle that industry sets the questions and technology provides the answers. A new round of initiatives will upgrade key manufacturing supply chains, drive breakthroughs across the entire chain, and speed up their conversion into new quality productive forces," said Li.

China’s new high-speed train unveils ambition to bridge technology, manufacturing