China’s Zotye preparing to launch a driverless SUV


zotye driverless suv

Zotye, a smaller Chinese car maker specialising in budget cars, has released plans to launch a driverless SUV later this year.

China’s car industry is perhaps just as exciting as the phone industry with more new cars and technology launching in the country than any other.

Back in the early days of the Chinese car industry Zotye made old Daihatsu jeeps under license. The little’s SUV’s sold by the boatload (even I nearly bought one) and set the car maker up for a life of making affordable daily drivers.

The days of the old Daihatsu are behind them and in recent years Zotye have launched some of the cheapest cars in the world and even their own knock off Audi Q3.

Gizchina News of the week


Their latest vehicle is an adaptation of their Zotye X5 (a VW wannabe) which features an advanced self driving system for automated driving. The compact SUV boasts sensor to avoid collision, adaptive cruise control, lane change assistance, self parking month a whole host of other driving aids.

zotye driverless suv

The SUV was developed with help from Nanjing university and is undergoing testing now. One this is for sure, if China are able to make driverless cars that can handle their busy roads, then they are set to be at the forefront of the technology very soon.

Previous Meizu MX6 with Helio X20 and 6GB RAM?
Next Deal: $8 off on the UMi Touch

12 Comments

  1. Wolvie
    March 14, 2016

    I wouldn’t bet my life riding this car.
    Their OS probably will be bloated with china malware LOL

    • balcobomber25
      March 14, 2016

      Couldn’t be any worse than a certain Korean OS.

      • Matouš Kostlivý
        March 17, 2016

        Could you be a bit more explicit? What is the situation with Korean OS?

        • balcobomber25
          March 17, 2016

          Samsung Touchwiz is beyond terrible.

  2. Joel Adames
    March 14, 2016

    Well Andi, most likely, they will at some point. But they will have to wait some good 5 years. The congestion China fares is one that will need a lot of fronts in order to get it under control.
    A Volvo can do a lot, a Tesla can do “even” more, a Mercedes well you know, but all rely on good road signs and street markings they can’t just run on GPS and cmaras. So government must be in to help fix those… And that is usually the weakest link.

  3. Freeje
    March 14, 2016

    Whatever avoidance system it uses, it will be working overtime here in China. Cars here just come out from nowhere and it seems that people here don’t know how to use the side/rear view mirror or they just don’t care. Electric bikes and pedestrians are another story.

  4. Guest
    March 14, 2016

    I wouldn’t bet my life riding this car.
    Their OS probably will be bloated with china malware LOL

    • balcobomber25
      March 14, 2016

      Couldn’t be any worse than a certain Korean OS.

    • Matouš Kostlivý
      March 17, 2016

      Could you be a bit more explicit? What is the situation with Korean OS?

    • balcobomber25
      March 17, 2016

      Samsung Touchwiz is beyond terrible.

  5. Joel Adames
    March 14, 2016

    Well Andi, most likely, they will at some point. But they will have to wait some good 5 years. The congestion China fares is one that will need a lot of fronts in order to get it under control.
    A Volvo can do a lot, a Tesla can do “even” more, a Mercedes well you know, but all rely on good road signs and street markings they can’t just run on GPS and cmaras. So government must be in to help fix those… And that is usually the weakest link.

  6. Freeje
    March 14, 2016

    Whatever avoidance system it uses, it will be working overtime here in China. Cars here just come out from nowhere and it seems that people here don’t know how to use the side/rear view mirror or they just don’t care. Electric bikes and pedestrians are another story.