{"id":434542,"date":"2026-05-19T06:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/434542\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T06:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:04:13","slug":"chinas-old-motown-shanghai-bets-on-robotaxis-better-batteries-for-a-gdp-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/434542\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s old \u2018Motown\u2019, Shanghai bets on robotaxis, better batteries for a GDP bump"},"content":{"rendered":"

The financial and commercial hub of mainland China is pinning its economic hopes on emerging industries such as autonomous driving and solid-state electric vehicle (EV) batteries to sustain growth following a robust start to 2026.<\/p>\n

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng said the city remained confident about achieving a 5 per cent economic expansion this year, buoyed by a strategy to attract foreign businesses and bolster local tech innovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will double efforts to enlarge investment in key projects, taking advantage of their role in driving technological innovations,\u201d Gong said at a press conference on Monday. \u201cWe aim to eventually revitalise industries, improve efficiency in urban renewal and enhance people\u2019s living standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s upbeat sentiment came even with the US-Israel war on Iran clouding the global economic outlook while exposing China\u2019s industrial hubs to energy-supply risks and inflationary pressure.<\/p>\n

Shanghai \u2013 home to SAIC Motor, which is one of the mainland\u2019s largest state-owned carmakers, and to Tesla\u2019s wholly owned Gigafactory<\/a> \u2013 has been aggressively driving the development of self-driving technology over the past two years.<\/p>\n

Pony AI initially operated its fleet in Shanghai\u2019s Jinqiao and Huamu areas, covering a combined area of 40 sq km (15.4 square miles), on a trial basis. The testing zone would be gradually expanded to other parts of Pudong, China\u2019s 1,400 sq km (540-square-mile) pioneer zone, to showcase progress in building a modern socialist system, according to a statement by Pony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The financial and commercial hub of mainland China is pinning its economic hopes on emerging industries such as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[222397,138,607,1986,219,151504,20796,222403,58061,111,139,69,222400,222399,200904,3747,222401,58057,6358,222398,222402,5536,1733],"class_list":["post-434542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-autonomous-driving-tech","tag-business","tag-china","tag-detroit","tag-economy","tag-gong-zheng","tag-guangzhou","tag-jinshan","tag-local-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pony-ai","tag-pudong-new-area","tag-saic-motor","tag-shanghai","tag-shanghai-commission-of-economy-and-information-technology","tag-shanghai-mayor-gong-zheng","tag-shenzhen","tag-solid-state-battery","tag-tang-wenkan","tag-tesla","tag-toyota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}