In driverless vehicle push, Wuhan promotes freight projects over human transport
Dongfeng's driverless port trucks, China Post's driverless delivery and an SF Express blood-drone pilot are among the proposed showcase entries.
A proposed list of showcase "AI+transport" projects put out the Wuhan municipal government is focused solely on driverless vehicles that move goods, not people.
The list, posted for public comment Oct. 19–25 in a joint notice by Wuhan's transport bureau (武汉市交通运输局) and its economy and IT bureau (市经济和信息化局), names 25 "typical application scenarios" alongside three AI agents, five smart terminal products and four datasets. The entries came from applications by companies and public institutions, district recommendations and a city review, according to the notice.
Dongfeng Yuexiang Technology (东风悦享科技有限公司), which builds driverless container trucks for the Wuhan-based state automaker Dongfeng (东风汽车), entered L4 driverless port trucks under the label "scaled application." China Post's Wuhan branch entered the scaled application of driverless last-mile delivery. A Wuhan unit of Neolix (新石器), a maker of driverless delivery vehicles, entered its vans. SF Express (顺丰速运)'s Hubei unit entered a pilot project to carry blood by drone. JD.com's "Asia No. 1" apparel warehouse in Wuhan is on the list too.
What the list leaves out is passenger driving. Our reading of all 25 scenarios found no robotaxi and no driverless busses. The only bus entry, from Wuhan's city bus operator (武汉市公共交通集团有限责任公司), is a demonstration of AI agents that sense passenger flows and optimize bus operations. Baidu's Apollo Go won permits for fully driverless commercial robotaxis in Wuhan in 2022, TechCrunch reported. The notice says entries came from applications, so it doesn't show whether any robotaxi operator applied.
The list also doesn't say which projects are already in service. It labels some entries "scaled application" and the SF Express drone project a pilot, and the notice calls them all innovation results proposed for publication. Dongfeng's entry doesn't name a port, but the company already runs driverless trucks at Yangluo port on the Yangtze in Wuhan's Xinzhou district. Dongfeng Yuexiang won a contract in 2023 for three driverless container trucks there, Hubei Daily (湖北日报) reported. By April 2025, Dongfeng had put 12 of a planned 18 into the port's third phase, Changjiang Daily (长江日报) reported. The bureaus are taking objections until Oct. 25 before publishing the list, the notice says.
Sources: 武汉市交通运输局 Wuhan Municipal Transport Bureau (notice and attachments 1–4), 湖北日报 Hubei Daily, 长江日报 Changjiang Daily (Wuhan government portal), TechCrunch
Editor: Ian Lamont
