Beijing is letting its first driverless cars take to the roads

Tech giant Baidu has been granted the first license for testing autonomous vehicles in China’s capital.

The news: Beijing officials gave Baidu license plates for its self-driving cars today. That’s one way of saying that the company will soon take its autonomous vehicles out for a drive on the city’s roads.

Challenging conditions: With pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and cars jostling for space, Beijing’s roads will be incredibly complex for robotic vehicles to navigate. That’s especially true by comparison with the kinds of suburban roads that many American autonomous cars have been tackling.