Shenzhen · Half a day, booked on its own
Half a day in two versions of the same technology: a fully driverless taxi on open public roads with the cabin screen showing you how it reads the street, then a market where those same sensors are loose in trays.
Shenzhen has opened over seven hundred kilometres of road to autonomous testing, across more than a dozen companies.
And a few kilometres away, the same sensors and chips are loose in trays, sold by the handful.
It is the only city where you can do both in the same afternoon.
13:50Pingshan, not Nanshan
Fully driverless in Pingshan · safety drivers still ride elsewhere
This matters and most write-ups get it wrong. In much of Shenzhen an autonomous taxi still carries a safety driver. Pingshan is the district that opened its full road network and went to commercial operation with nobody in the car at all — which is why the ride happens here and not somewhere more convenient.
14:20The interesting part
Pedestrians, cyclists, lanes — all as boxes
The cabin screen shows the world as the system has it: every pedestrian a box, every vehicle a box, lane lines it has decided are real. Watching it hesitate at a scooter that hasn't committed to a turn tells you more about the state of autonomy than any specification does.
14:50On a normal street
Unprotected left turns · lane changes · U-turns
The published test runs are specific about what these cars handle: pulling round a delivery scooter parked in a live lane, yielding to pedestrians and road workers crossing, and completing unprotected left turns, lane changes and U-turns. None of that is dramatic to watch. That is the point — the achievement is being boring in traffic.
15:30Where the parts live
Floors of counters · components and finished goods
Huaqiangbei trades a serious share of the world's electronics, in a building layout closer to a fabric market than a mall. Components in trays, finished devices in cases, and a working knowledge of supply chains behind every counter. Your guide's job here is to keep you out of the tourist aisles.
16:10Turn it over
AI earpieces · smart glasses · small robots · drones
AI translation earpieces, smart glasses, quadruped and humanoid toys, drones of every size. Some of it is remarkable and some is junk, and half the value of the hour is learning to tell which is which by handling it — a skill nobody acquires from a product page.
The point of doing both
The robotaxi is the polished end: a closed system, enormous capital, full redundancy in the drive-by-wire, and a ride so smooth the technology disappears.
Huaqiangbei is the open end: the same sensors, the same chips, loose in trays, being bought by people who will make something else out of them by Friday.
Standing in both on one afternoon is the clearest explanation of this city anyone has come up with. It is also why the the day run in this order — the day starts with things made entirely by hand, and finishes here.
Half a day on its own. Tell us a date and we'll confirm the zone is running that morning.
Start planning
