Chinese Autonomous Vehicle Companies Made Big Moves This Week

While we all had our eyes glued to the GameStop ticker, Chinese autonomous vehicle companies were making big moves.

Red lights, stop signs

Now that I've gotten the "Driver's License" lyrics out of the way, here's the news.

West Coast move: This week, Baidu scored permission to test fully autonomous vehicles on the streets of Sunnyvale, California.

• Baidu’s AVs are confined to areas with 45 mph speed limits, and in the event of inclement weather—like rain, or Karl the Fog—they’ll be garage-bound.

Taxi driver(less): AutoX, the Alibaba-backed AV startup, has now opened up its driverless robotaxi service to the general public in Shenzhen. Residents of the city—which has the highest level of population density in China—can now book a robotaxi ride.

• Although there’s no safety driver involved, customer support agents are available for questions during the ride.

Raking in the $$: Yesterday, Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing announced a $300 million funding round, earmarked for advancing its autonomous driving unit.

• This comes after the company landed road-testing licenses in California (with safety drivers) and three Chinese cities—and adds to the $500 million it raised last May.