Autonomous driving firm raises over US$500m

Didi Chuxing said its autonomous driving subsidiary has raised over US$500 million from venture investors led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. 

Didi said it will use the money to push for the adoption of autonomous driving for passenger vehicles in certain areas at home and abroad.   

It is also seeking to increase artificial intelligence-related fields and explore deeper collaboration with industry chain players to speed up the commercial production of autonomous driving vehicles. 

Didi’s autonomous driving unit was set up in 2016 and upgraded to an independent company in August last year. 

In addition to building its own fleet for test drives, it will use data from simulation testing to improve research and development efficiency, and speeding up algorithm iterations. 

It will also draw from operation experience from car-hailing businesses to manage test driving of autonomous vehicles.

Didi Autonomous Driving has acquired public road testing licences in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou and California, and also holds the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Demonstration Application License in China issued by Shanghai transport and economic development authorities.