WeRide Brings in New Self-Driving Vehicles, Likely for Use in Punggol

Autonomous driving technology company WeRide has brought its latest five-seater self-driving vehicles into Singapore – likely for use as community shuttles that will ply fixed routes within Punggol in a couple of months' time.

- Kok Yufeng

This is in line with what Acting Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow said in June, that the authorities hope to get the first such self-driving shuttles on the road here by the start of the fourth quarter of 2025.

WeRide, which is headquartered in Guangzhou, confirmed the arrival of its new autonomous vehicles, after one of them was seen being transported on the bed of a tow truck in Jalan Bahar on Aug 28.

Called GXRs, the vehicles are already operating as robotaxis in cities like Beijing and Abu Dhabi. They were developed for mass production with Geely-owned Chinese commercial vehicle maker Farizon.

The Straits Times understands that WeRide is one of the autonomous vehicle manufacturers that the Ministry of Transport (MOT) has been in talks with to roll out self-driving shuttles in Punggol.

This is in addition to the self-driving eight-seater bus that WeRide already operates in the Resorts World Sentosa integrated resort, which got the green light in July to run without safety personnel on board – a first for South-east Asia.