Hangzhou/Beijing: Chinese tech firm Alibaba`s internet-connected car will set the Chinese e-commerce giant up to quickly introduce driverless vehicle technology, Chief Technology Officer Wang Jian told Reuters on Wednesday.


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Alibaba and the country`s largest automaker SAIC Motor Corp demonstrated their jointly developed car equipped with the YunOS operating system, which can link up with smart phones, at an event in eastern China`s Hangzhou on Wednesday. The car is slated to go on sale later this year.


"You`ll quickly see driverless car technology resulting from this platform," Wang said on the sidelines of the event.


Among major tech companies, Alibaba is relatively late to offer a platform that can link a smart phone to a car, trailing platforms already launched by Alphabet`s Google, Apple and Baidu.


But the race to commercialise driverless cars is far from over with experts predicting that a fully autonomous car will not hit the market until 2020 or later.