Guangzhou has issued 55 notices and launched 67 routes spanning 135 kilometers in total for ICV (intelligent-vehicle connected) road tests, Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau said on August 24.

　　According to Shen Ying, deputy director-general of Guangzhou Municipal Transportation Bureau, Guangzhou plans to launch pilot operation of ICV road tests in one or two districts first this year, and strives to renovate over 100-km roads for ICV testing by 2021. Besides, to explore the new business model of mobility service under the ICV scenarios, each district should put the ICVs from not fewer than three testing applicants into pilot commercial operation before 2022.

　　Guangzhou has already released a series of policies and technical standards related to ICV road tests, and set forth the testing methods for road, passenger-carrying, remote control, fleet formation tests and other types of tests. It has also permitted applicants to conduct ICV tests on urban express ways. Notably, Guangzhou is the first one in Chinese mainland that recognizes the testing approval an applicant receives from other cities. 

　　Under the National Guidelines for Developing the Standards System of the Telematics Industry (ICV) jointly issued by the MIIT and the Standardization Administration of China in 2017, ICV is defined as a future generation of vehicles, equipped with advanced in-car sensors, controllers, actuators and other devices and integrated with modern communication and network technologies, which are able to achieve the exchange and sharing of intelligent information between vehicles and other factors such as individuals, vehicles, roads and cloud, have functions allowing awareness of complex surroundings, intelligent decision making and collaborative control, are able to realize “safe, efficient, comfortable, energy saving” driving, and ultimately would realize driving operations in replacement of human beings. With this broad definition, both connected vehicles and autonomous / driverless vehicles would fall within the scope of ICV.

　　Guangzhou is ambitious to see its automobile capacity surpass 5 million units in 2025, according to a document approved by Guangzhou municipal government on August 24 at a press conference themed the pandemic prevention and control and the work resumption.

　　The document, dubbed the Opinions on Speeding up the Development of Guangzhou's Automobile Industries (called “the Opinions” for short), said that the capital of Guangdong province aims to make the output value of automobile manufacturing industries with annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($2,890,382) or more exceed 1 trillion yuan ($144,519,110,000) on an annual basis in 2025, and a world-class automobile industrial cluster will take shape then.

　　As for the ICV business, Guangzhou will work at hammering out a country-leading 5G-based IoV (Internet of Vehicles) standard system and building an enclosed zone for ICV (intelligent-connected vehicle) tests. By 2025, a state-level demonstration zone for the applications of smart traffic and ICVs based on mobile broadband & Internet is expected to be basically completed.