Chinese military and automobile experts have claimed a great leap forward by successfully developing the country’s first automatic sedan, which is also the world’s fastest. This marks a great leap in China’s automobile manufacturing technology, the experts from the Changchun-based first automobile works (FAW) and the National Defence Science and Technology University. Under normal traffic conditions, the sedan has a maximum stable speed of 130 kilometres per hour and a peak speed of 170 kilometres per hour, said Cheng Chuanhe, senior designer with faw and a member of the research project. The vehicle’s technical performances had reached the world’s leading standards, he said.According to experts, automatic driving systems developed in the United States have a maximum stable speed of 100 kilometres per hour and German-designed systems 120 kilometres per hour. Some experts predicted that most luxury cars would be equipped with an automatic driving system after 2010, which would greatly improve the safety standards of highway traffic.
