Germany's Volkswagen Group has started public-road testing of Level 3 autonomous driving technology in China. It plans to move toward commercialising autonomous vehicles in 2027 based on AI technology jointly developed with local companies.

Electrek reported on Oct. 26 that Volkswagen Group China said it had obtained a permit for Level 3 autonomous driving road tests in Hefei in China's Anhui province.

The permit allows Volkswagen to conduct real-world driving tests and collect large-scale data on public roads in Hefei. The company said it received approval under China's strict Level 3 regulatory framework and met the latest safety design standards. It did not disclose the type or number of test vehicles or the specific routes.

Level 3 is conditional autonomous driving technology in which the vehicle handles driving under certain conditions, but the driver must take over when the system requests it.

Volkswagen's autonomous driving software for China is being developed by local joint venture CARIZON. CARIZON was jointly established by Volkswagen software subsidiary CARIAD and Chinese semiconductor company Horizon Robotics.

The core technologies are an AI-based driver assistance system called Hyper Sense 8 and an in-house world model called Gaia 2.0.

Volkswagen said Gaia 2.0 uses about 30 million driving scenario data points collected on real roads. Based on that, it runs safety simulations equivalent to 5 million km of real-world driving a day, with plans to expand to 10 million km.

It is also developing an in-house system-on-chip, or SoC, called C7H, designed to support up to Level 4 autonomous driving.

Volkswagen aims to complete Level 3 technology development by 2027 and to deliver vehicles equipped with the function starting as early as the second half of that year.

The permit is for road testing and does not mean sales approval for Level 3 vehicles. In China, Changan Automobile and Beijing Auto received conditional product approval for Level 3 vehicles in December last year.

Attention is focused on whether Volkswagen can secure competitiveness in China's autonomous driving market through cooperation with local companies.