China's first driverless cars go for trial run in Wuzhen

Without drivers, cars could move on the roads guided by auto positioning, follow the traffic lights, stop upon seeing pedestrians or barriers, and make turns in line with set routes. Such vehicles will become a reality in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

Scheduled to make its debut at the World Internet Conference next week, the driverless cars are developed by Baidu Inc and automakers of Chery, BYD and Shou Qi Group. More than a dozen driverless cars will go for a trial run for a total of 5 kilometers on a road in Wuzhen, with the highest speed reaching 60 km per hour.

Wang Jin, senior vice-president of Baidu and general manager of the company's Autonomous Driving Unit, said at a forum last week that Baidu, Google and Uber are the main developers of driverless car technology.

The cameras on Baidu's driverless vehicles have an accuracy of 90.13 percent for judging objects, the highest level in the world. For judgment of pedestrians the accuracy reached 95 percent and for traffic lights 99.9 percent. But the accuracy still needs to improve, Wang added.

Wang said that Baidu's goal is to realize the commercial potential of driverless cars on a small scale in three years. In five years, it hopes to be producing them on a large scale.

Driverless cars will bring tremendous change to the entire auto industry, he said.

Shi Huilin contributed to this story.