Alibaba has become the first company in China to receive approval to test self-driving trucks without a driver behind the wheel on public roads in the eastern city of Deqing. The e-commerce giant has had permission to conduct small-scale vehicle testing with a backup driver in the eastern Zhejiang province since late last year, but now local authorities will allow its trucks to transport cargo with a human monitor in the passenger seat. In regards to autonomous cargo, the company has so far made more progress in low-speed last-mile delivery robots, claiming that its automated delivery vehicles have completed over 10 million trips as of March following four years of development. [Securities Times, in Chinese]