The expansion follows the launch of a pilot in Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth, earlier this month. During the trial, Didi connected more than 2,000 drivers who transported more than 20,000 residents.

“South Africa has been hit particularly hard by this pandemic that has upended all of our lives – so as this beautiful country looks to recover and rebuild, we would like to do our part, to be a partner in building back better by providing better earning opportunities for drivers as well as safer and more affordable mobility options for everyone,” said Stephen Zhu, Senior Vice President and Head of DiDis International Business.

South Africa is the first country in Africa to welcome Didi’s services. Outside of China, it also has presences in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Russia, the Dominican Republic, and Argentina. Next month, the company plans to begin introducing its service in Ecuador.

In South Africa, Uber and Bolt are the dominant services with both serving across cities including Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban, East London, Cape Town, Kimberley, and more.

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The ‘Global Vaccination Support Fund’ will see Didi had out free or discounted rides for people travelling to vaccination appointments and for the healthcare workers providing vaccinations across the 13 markets, which include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, and Russia.

The cash will also be used to support other measures in each country, though how the fund is allocated will be decide on a market-by-market basis.

“The vaccination support initiative is a crucial step in our local recovery effort across the world,” said Jean Liu, President of Didi Chuxing. “The incredible commitment and agility of Didi teams, together with a safety system built for complex mobility scenarios, play a critical role in protecting our people and ensuring essential services throughout these challenging times. We will continue to stand by our partners and communities to get our cities moving again.”

In the past year, the ride-hailing platform has already sponsored more than 6m free or discounted rides and meals for frontline healthcare workers outside of China through its ‘Didi Hero’ initiative. It has also distributed more than 6m masks and sanitation kits to its driver and courier partners, and provided financial support to those partners.

Back at home in China, the company sponsored over 1m free rides, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of thousands of drivers who signed up to join Didi’s medical fleets. And it setup 200 offline sanitation stations, while providing over RMB 200m to support its drivers.

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The joint venture, called ‘JingJu’, will see Didi team up with BAIC affiliate Beijing Electric Vehicle to combine expertise on new energy fleet operation and AI transportation. Although, it’s not clear what the pair will work on within these areas in particular.

Didi has formed several partnerships with automakers and fleet operators over the last few years, launching the Didi Auto Alliance – an industry-chain partnership network – in April 2018. Shortly after, it pumped $1bn into its automobile services business, renaming it as Xiaoju Automobile Solutions. This platform is a collaborative driver/car owner service.

BAIC plans to stop the manufacturing and sale of gas-driven car models by 2025. Around 400,00 new energy vehicles are currently registered with Didi, as such, part of the partnership will look at adding to these electric vehicles.

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The new service will offer mutual protection and crowdfunding products for critical illnesses, credit and lending, wealth management, and auto-financing services, among other products. The Chinese transportation platform trialled its in-app financial services offering in 10 cities including Chongqing, Zhengzhou, and Foshan before this rollout to the entire country.

With the nationwide launch, there will be two groups of services available. The first is ‘Didi protection and credit services’, which is aimed at delivering personal financial products for short-term workers within the gig economy. Meanwhile, ‘auto-financing solutions’ will look to create links between Didi’s drivers and vehicle partners and create a supply of electric vehicles through purchasing, leasing, trading, and financing services.

Didi hopes that the introduction of financial services will help it build a stronger network of collaboration, leading to a more efficient transportation offering in 2019.

Didi’s 2018 was mired in controversy after a series of safety incidents, which included the separate murders of two female passengers. These incidents have led authorities to begin clamping down on Uber China owner and the company working on measures to improve safety, including the introduction of in-car audio recording.

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Didi has begun trialling in-car recording, which will record all audio from the entirety of journeys and upload the files to the company’s servers for a week before being deleted if a complaint hasn’t been made about that specific journey. This service will require both passengers and drivers to provide authorisation.

In addition, the firm is upgrading an in-car panic button with a link directly to the police and is introducing more stringent background checks of drivers by using risk assessment based on big data and facial recognition.

In order to implement these changes, Didi has suspended services between 11pm and 5am until 15 September.

Last month, a Didi driver confessed to the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in the city of Wenzhou. This followed a similar incident back in May where a 21-year-old woman was alleged to have been raped and killed by an unregistered Didi driver in Zhengzhou.

Alongside news of the changes to be made, it was revealed that Didi has not made a profit in the six years since it was founded, losing 4bn yuan ($585m/£453m) in the first half of this year.

“Didi is by no means an evil company, and would never prioritise generating profit above anything else,” said Didi founder and chief executive Cheng Wei in a letter to employees seen by the South China Morning Post. “We have not been profitable over the past six years.”

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According to an update on the State of California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which was first reported on by the Financial Times, Didi has been granted a permit to begin testing self-driving cars as long as a driver is present.

The owner of Uber China joins the likes of Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Alphabet’s Waymo, Ford, BMW, Honda, Lyft, Tesla, Intel, and more as one of the 53 companies with permits to test autonomous vehicles in the state.

Didi’s move comes not long after its US rival Uber was forced to suspend its self-driving car tests right across the country following a fatal accident with a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona in March. It was found that Uber’s driverless car software did detect the woman but chose to ignore her after identifying the pedestrian as a ‘false positive’ – or something that did not pose a threat like a plastic bag.

Didi opened its AI and self-driving lab in California in March 2017 with cyber security industry executive Gong Fengmin at the helm and former Uber researcher Charlie Miller also on the team – though Miller joined General Motors-owned Cruise Automation just six months later. The company has been testing autonomous vehicles in China for several months.

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The partnership will utilise Didi Chuxings AI technology to build ride-hailing platforms that enhance efficiency for both operators and drivers, and will also see the two companies setting up a joint venture in Japan to manage the platform.

Taxi services in Japan are known for high standards of quality, but both partners believe that they can help further optimise services and increase passenger convenience. The partnership will combine Didi Chuxings deep learning-based demand prediction and smart dispatch systems with SoftBanks local resources and expertise, and will aim to actively engage with industy practitioners, policymakers and other stakeholders to build an “open and inclusive platform that will be available to all of Japans taxi operators,” according to a spokesperson for Didi Chuxing.

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The ‘Bike-Sharing’ tab will be introduced to the Didi app in Beijing and Shenzhen, enabling users to rent bikes without a deposit being required. It will eventually be rolled out across China.

“By launching its bike-sharing platform, Didi will upgrade its short-trip mobility strategy and provide various mobility options and better travel experiences for travelers on the last three kilometers,” says Fu Qiang, senior VP of Didi. “This illustrates Didis efforts to continuously improve our one-stop transportation platform.”

With Didi also planning to introduce its own-branded bike sharing service, the move can only be seen as an aggressive strategic manoeuvre in order to reduce competition. The integration of Bluegogo and Ofo ensures that users will have no need to download their apps, instead only using Didi’s app for all their transportation needs.

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The e-Palette Concept Vehicle, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), has been designed by Toyota to ‘meet the demands of future multi-mode transportation and business applications’. Leveraging Toyota’s Mobility Services Platform (MSPF), the vehicle is electric and fully automated.

“The automobile industry is clearly amidst its most dramatic period of change as technologies like electrification, connected and automated driving are making significant progress,” said Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Corporation president. “Toyota remains committed to making ever better cars. Just as important, we are developing mobility solutions to help everyone enjoy their lives, and we are doing our part to create an ever-better society for the next 100 years and beyond. This announcement marks a major step forward in our evolution towards sustainable mobility, demonstrating our continued expansion beyond traditional cars and trucks to the creation of new values including services for customers.”

Toyota plans on testing the concept vehicle in regions around the world in early 2020, with the hopes of contributing to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo that year. Toyota’s partners will be able to leverage the concept in coordination with all of the MSPF services, or incorporate the vehicle into their own tech development program.

So, we can prepare ourselves for self-driving pizza deliveries, Amazon deliveries, and Uber rides in a pod-like, futuristic-looking AI vehicle.

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Services including Didi Premier, Didi Express, Didi Luxe and Ofo – Didi’s partner bike-sharing service – will now let users authenticate payments biometrically with their fingerprint on iOS and, eventually, with FaceID when the iPhone X is released.

In addition to Apple Pay, Didi already supported payments through WeChat Pay, AliPay, QQ Wallet, international credit cards and CMB OneNet Service.

This isn’t the first iOS feature that Didi has integrated into its services. Previously, the ride hailing company introduced the ability to use Siri from within the Maps app, and via Apple Watch, to hail a ride.

Elsewhere, Didi Select – a second product operated by the Uber China team – has reached 1m rides. On the back of this, Didi Select will expand its service to reach 22 cities by the end of this month. The Chinese division of Uber was picked up by Didi Chuxing last year for $1bn, leaving Uber with a 5.89 per cent equity stake.

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