Voyah, the premium electric-vehicle brand under Dongfeng, took its Taishan X8 SUV to Shanghai on November 5 for the third leg of its "Smart Drive Through the City" live-stream series, according to NetEase Auto. The route covered 43.7 kilometres (27.2 miles) of the city's most demanding roads, including narrow historic lanes, a busy commercial district, river-crossing tunnels, a double roundabout and a spiral ramp. The vehicle passed 129 intersections, completed 98 lane changes, handled 137 cut-ins and one temporary traffic closure, maintaining lane centring 100% of the time with zero driver interventions and zero hard braking.
The Shanghai challenge was designed to test cross-city generalisation, not just difficulty. Unlike single-scenario tests, the route stacked multiple pressure points in sequence: the Wukang Building five-way intersection and Beijing East Road narrow lanes tested negotiation in dense mixed traffic, while the Waitan and Xinjian Road tunnels tested stability under weak satellite signals. On the Lujiazui stretch, the car completed five lane changes within about 250 metres (820 feet), and it navigated the double roundabout and the spiral ramp without hesitation.
Voyah attributes the performance to the Huawei Qiankun ADS 5 system, which uses four lidar units, including a main 896-line sensor for longer and more precise detection. The company stresses that the system is not tuned for a specific city or memorised routes; instead, perception, decision-making and chassis execution are designed to be generalisable, with the brain sending commands and the chassis responding in milliseconds.
Truth system exposed
The most novel element of the Shanghai broadcast was Voyah's decision to bring its engineering-grade truth system, normally kept confidential during development, in front of the camera. The equipment, valued at over 1.5 million yuan (about $211,000), includes a roof-mounted 128-line mechanical lidar that rotates 360 degrees, two side blind-spot lidars, six high-resolution cameras, a timing server, a high-precision integrated inertial navigation unit and data processing hosts.
Voyah's logic is that users' biggest concern with ADAS is not whether it can drive, but whether they can trust it. The truth system serves as an independent reference, recording the vehicle's actual state, relative positions of objects and steering wheel angle, turning subjective "stability" into verifiable data. Viewers could watch real-time status during the broadcast, and post-event analysis covers headway time, response latency, lane centring, deceleration and jerk.
By making the test and scoring process transparent, Voyah aims to counter scepticism about "showcase route tuning" and self-promotion. The company says the Shanghai stop turns the live-stream series into an engineering sample for how ADAS can move from "looks usable" to "checkable and verifiable," with zero interventions as the result and data disclosure as the method.
The Taishan X8 is a battery-electric SUV (BEV) that Voyah positions as a technology flagship. The Shanghai test follows earlier legs in Guangzhou and Beijing, where driving styles, pedestrian habits and road complexity differ, yet the system adapted without recalibration, according to the company.
