Analysis
CaoCao Mobility, the ride-hailing arm of Chinese automaker Geely, announced the official launch of robotaxi testing without a safety driver behind the wheel on public roads in Hangzhou's Binjiang District, under real-world urban traffic conditions.
The rollout uses a station-triggered dispatch mechanism rather than open hailing, deliberately limiting where and how the driverless vehicles operate while CaoCao validates operational stability and service reliability at a controlled scale. Every vehicle in the program connects to CaoCao's Zhixing RAS Remote Safety Service Platform, a cloud-based system providing continuous safety monitoring, emergency call response and real-time remote assistance.
CaoCao has deployed roughly 100 robotaxis in Hangzhou so far, supported by what it describes as the world's first Green Intelligent Mobility Hub -- a facility that automates battery swapping, vehicle cleaning and preparation to support fleet operations at scale.
The launch puts CaoCao alongside Baidu's Apollo Go, Pony.ai and WeRide as a fourth serious contender in China's driverless robotaxi race, all pushing to scale safety-driver-free service even as Waymo maintains a commanding lead in the US with roughly 3,000 driverless vehicles completing more than 500,000 paid trips per week nationally.
What to watch: how quickly CaoCao expands beyond the Binjiang District's controlled dispatch model to broader public hailing, whether any safety incidents surface during the initial driverless testing phase, and how CaoCao's fleet economics compare with Baidu's and Pony.ai's as all three scale simultaneously in overlapping Chinese cities.
