The competition is heating up in China, the world’s largest car market, with internet firm and Alibaba rival Baidu recently predicting that self-driving vehicles will hit the road in the country within three to five years.

Both Baidu and Chinese tech giant Tencent are pursuing the technology, stirring speculation about Alibaba’s plans.

“We’ve been doing a lot of research on driverless things,” Ma told reporters on Thursday while on a business trip to Bangkok.

“What we want to do is (figure out) how we can make the cars more automatic, more friendly, more like a partner of human beings rather than just a driving tool,” he said.
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