Smart cars to account for half of China's new car market by 2020

By the year 2020, smart cars will account for up to 50 percent of China's new car market, according to a draft smart cars strategy released by China's top economic planner, reports The Beijing News.

A car equipped with the Apollo 2.0 driverless system developed by Chinese Internet giant Baidu debuts in the U.S. [File Photo: VCG]

The draft strategy, produced by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), is open for public feedback until January 20, 2018. 

Smart cars are a new generation of cars that combine data from in-built sensors with cloud-based AI technologies so they can be driven autonomously or semi-autonomously.

The draft smart cars strategy aims to build China into a competitive world-leader in the smart car market. It has the goal of raising the proportion of new cars sold in China that are smart cars to 50 percent by 2020. It also contains proposals to foster technology innovation in the smart car sector, develop road networks suited to smart cars, and provide regulations for smart car development. The government’s long-term goal is for China to be the world leader in the smart car industry by 2035.

It is planned that test runs of smart cars will be conducted in relatively closed areas and in conjunction with major construction projects like Xiongan New Area.