Workers are busy on the production lines at the workshop of Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company in Wuhan, Hubei province, on March 24, 2020. [Photo/Xinhua]

Dongfeng Motor is planning to build China's largest fleet of autonomous vehicles in Wuhan, as part of an investment deal with local authorities in the capital of Hubei province.

Via a statement on its WeChat account on Wednesday, the State-owned carmaker said that it will run a fleet of at least 200 vehicles together with its partners by 2022. They will also expand the test region to include Wuhan's core urban areas.

Dongfeng said the goal is to aid the scale production of high-level autonomous driving technology, and it will explore business models via the carmaker's mobility platform.

China is seeing a growing number of companies try out autonomous vehicles: Toyota-backed Pony.ai, Baidu, Nissan-backed WeRide, Didi Chuxing and Geely's Caocao are all testing autonomous cars in cities across the country.

Volkswagen said on Wednesday it will start testing autonomous vehicles in Hefei, Anhui province.

The taxi project will start in September using Audi's e-tron electric sport utility vehicles. The test will be open to the public from next year.

The trial, dubbed Project Tiger, may be replicated in other cities although there isn't any specific timetable, said Volkswagen China Executive Vice-President Weiming Soh.