Baidu's Apollo Go Photo: Courtesy of Baidu

Hong Kong has given the green light to its first fully driverless autonomous vehicles testing permit for Baidu's Apollo Go, allowing the company to conduct public road testing on Airport Island without a person at the wheel.

The testing will officially commence on July 27. This marks the world's first fully driverless public road test conducted in a "right-hand drive, left-hand traffic" system, showing that China's autonomous vehicles have taken the lead in conquering the right-hand drive market, Baidu told the Global Times on Thursday.

Since receiving Hong Kong's first pilot license for autonomous vehicles in November 2024, Apollo Go's testing in Hong Kong has steadily expanded from Airport Island to areas including Tung Chung, Kowloon East, and the southern district of Hong Kong Island. 

The company said that it has achieved technical advancements in the fields of multi-vehicle coordinated operations, designated passenger-carrying trials, route expansion, and speed upgrades.

In February, the Transport Department in Hong Kong approved autonomous vehicles on Airport Island trial routes to be monitored by operators in the remote control center, in addition to the in-vehicle back-up operators. The trials of remote operation to date have met the requirements regarding safety, stability, accuracy and smoothness, according to the official website of the department on Thursday.

In the policy address for 2025 delivered by John Lee, chief executive of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), he said that the HKSAR government established a regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles last year. 

Three areas will be approved this year for autonomous vehicle trials, aiming at cross-district travel and connections to other modes of transport, to accelerate the large-scale development of driverless autonomous driving in Hong Kong, expediting its transition to commercial operations, and facilitating the industry's expansion to overseas, particularly right-hand-drive markets, using Hong Kong as the platform.

Hong Kong boasts a mature and well-established regulatory framework tailored to right-hand drive vehicles, combined with real-world complex operating conditions. As the world's first region to open public roads for right-hand drive driverless testing, completing technical validation here enables rapid replication to overseas markets such as London, said tech giant Baidu.

More than 70 countries and regions worldwide adopt right-hand driving, covering a population of approximately 2 billion, including the UK, Japan, Australia and Singapore, according to Baidu.

Global Times