BEIJING – Autonomous driving firm MOGOX marked its international debut in 2025 when it was part of a consortium that clinched the contract to deploy the first driverless vehicles on public bus routes in Singapore.

But the Beijing-based firm has larger ambitions – to be the world’s No. 1 brand for autonomous buses, building on the foundation of the Singapore project.

The contract marked the first time a Chinese autonomous bus has entered the public transport network of a developed country, noted MOGOX vice-president Lu Bin, who is in charge of the Singapore trial.

In a recent interview with The Straits Times, he said that as a hub in South-east Asia and a developed nation, Singapore is known for its strict regulations and rigorous standards.

“It is globally recognised as a benchmark for smart cities, and its entrance criteria for autonomous driving technology are regarded by the industry as the ‘gold standard’,” he said.

“Securing certification from the Singapore Government is equivalent to obtaining a certificate of entry into high-specification global markets, laying the foundation for entry into other overseas markets.”

MOGOX’s self-developed tech, with sensors that are installed in vehicles at the factory instead of retrofitted, will be deployed on two Singapore routes in the latter half of 2026, in Marina Bay and one-north.

The company – whose consortium partners in the project are Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD and Singapore-registered software and application developer MKX Technologies – expects its tech to deliver an experience as seamless as human-driven buses.

In recent years, Chinese firms such as MOGOX have been turning driverless mileage at home into commercial trials and large-scale deployments abroad. China aims to become the world leader in driverless vehicles by 2035.

Also in Singapore, WeRide launched autonomous shuttle rides in Punggol in April and wants a global fleet of 200,000 vehicles over the next five years.

Last December, Baidu announced partnerships with Lyft and Uber to bring its Apollo Go robotaxis to London streets. In April, Pony.ai began robotaxi trials in Dubai, with an eye to charging for these services later in 2026 with a fleet of hundreds of vehicles.

Professor Lee Der-Horng, who is Qiushi Chair Professor at Zhejiang University, said that Chinese autonomous driving companies going global is a natural trend as their technology and the industry reach a certain stage of development.

Over the past few years, China has accumulated a wealth of real-world road scenarios in autonomous driving testing, demonstration operations and commercial exploration, he told ST.

Since MOGOX was established in 2017, its buses have been deployed in more than 20 cities across China, from Beijing to Hunan, Shandong and Sichuan provinces. They have served more than 200,000 passengers with a total mileage of more than five million km.

“MOGOX positions itself as a leading global provider of autonomous driving solutions, committed to building the world’s No. 1 brand of autonomous driving buses,” said Mr Lu. 

Its core technologies are self-developed, he said, adding that these include hardware such as vehicle communication components to software algorithms that have ranked highly according to global autonomous driving benchmarks.

For driverless tech companies, a key distinguishing factor is the types of sensors – such as lasers, cameras and radar – they choose to use, and how the vast information collected is processed and interpreted.

MOGOX’s self-developed solution for sensing the environment includes a complementary mix of cameras and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) instruments to rapidly measure distances using laser pulses.

The company also uses solid-state LIDAR over traditional, mechanical ones with moving parts. This reduces cost while increasing durability and performance, in terms of higher distance perception and lower false detection rates.

MOGOX’s Singapore buses, which first reached the Republic in March 2026, are factory-fitted with such sensors, making them less visible on the exterior. In 2022, MOGOX launched the first factory-fitted, mass production, “Level 4” autonomous bus in China.

In the industry, Level 4 refers to a high level of self-driving that does not require human intervention in most situations.

Mr Lu, who has been flying to Singapore at least once a month to ensure the project’s delivery, said that the Marina Bay route will be first used for public demonstrations before carrying passengers.

The aim is to first increase public acceptance of the project. “Therefore, we are required to conduct empty runs (first), and the requirements for these runs are quite high, which is 1,000 laps,” he said, a process that may take several months.

Mr Lu stressed that Singapore places great emphasis on compliance requirements.

For example, punctuality at stops is strictly enforced, and a bus arriving more than two minutes early or being delayed by more than five minutes constitutes a breach of contract and is noted in the performance evaluation, he said.

Other requirements include mandatory testing under extreme conditions, such as heavy rain. The buses must also have “multi-sensor redundancy” to ensure that a single failure does not compromise safety.

On MOGOX’s ambitions, Mr Lu said Singapore is “a key foothold” in its overseas strategy. The company already has plans to expand its commercial operations of autonomous public buses into other high-density cities in South-east Asia. It also hopes to expand to the Middle East and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.

For Singapore’s commuters, MOGOX hopes its technology can provide comfort, safety and punctuality.

For city authorities and planners, it aims to deliver improvements in efficiency. “In the future, fully driverless systems will significantly reduce costs,” Mr Lu said.

Prof Lee, a transport expert who is also a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore, said that while Chinese companies have advantages in foreign markets, they also face several challenges, such as adapting their technologies to different environments outside of China.

Localisation issues in Singapore include the Republic’s traffic rules, pedestrian behaviour, road construction conditions and tropical rainstorms. In addition, driverless buses must meet the standards for reliable service, passenger experience, fare systems, emergency response, and integration with existing operators, he said.

There is also the issue of public trust, as public buses are a daily transportation service and passengers have a very low tolerance for safety issues. Therefore, Prof Lee said, it is crucial to deploy on-board safety personnel initially, strengthen real-time monitoring, and be transparent with operational details.

Prof Lee added: “Future international competition among autonomous driving companies will not just be about whose algorithms are more advanced, but about who can integrate technology, safety, operations, cost, and public trust in different countries’ regulatory environments.”