The Chinese corporation Baidu tested two of its unmanned vehicles on a highway on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported , citing the company. In March, she received permission from the authorities to conduct tests.

Baidu smart cars drove 33 km along the Tangshan-Langfang Expressway in Tianjin. The section of the road where the tests were carried out has not yet been put into operation, the agency notes.

Until recently, testing of self-driving cars was prohibited in China. However, last summer, an unmanned Baidu car drove through the streets of Beijing , carrying the corporation’s CEO, Robin Li. The company showed a video of the trip at its annual developer conference.

In April, China's Alibaba Group confirmed it was developing self-driving cars. That same month, Tencent signed an agreement with China's automobile corporation FAW to jointly develop smart cars. FAW previously reported that it could begin producing unmanned trucks as early as 2018.

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Chinese Baidu tested self-driving cars for the first time