No-Takeover Challenge at the Arc de Triomphe Roundabout: Momenta R7 World Model Takes On the Toughest Test in Autonomous Driving

The Arc de Triomphe roundabout in Paris is regarded by many drivers as the "world's most diabolical roundabout" — 12 major avenues converge here, the road surface has virtually no clear lane markings, and vehicles must yield to traffic entering from the right. At an intersection that even experienced human drivers find daunting, JAECOO and Momenta completed a no-takeover autonomous driving challenge.

What Makes the Diabolical Roundabout So Difficult

The autonomous driving route started from La Défense, crossed the Seine, passed through Neuilly-sur-Seine, and finally entered the Arc de Triomphe roundabout and surrounding streets, covering approximately 11.38 kilometers. Scenarios along the way included unmarked roads, 12 roundabout exits, the counterintuitive "priority to the right" rule, multi-directional traffic merging, construction detours, and interactions with pedestrians and cyclists.

The challenge of the Arc de Triomphe roundabout lies in the compounding of rules and spatial constraints. Vehicles inside the roundabout must yield to vehicles entering from the right — the opposite of the conventional roundabout right-of-way logic. With surrounding traffic interweaving and available space constantly shifting, the vehicle must simultaneously judge yielding timing and select the target exit path.

On this route, the JAECOO 7 test vehicle completed composed yielding and agile path selection, with smooth performance from merging to exiting. After entering the surrounding streets, the vehicle maintained smooth steering, deceleration, and avoidance maneuvers during construction detours, narrow road passages, and interactions with pedestrians and cyclists.

"Priority to the right" (priorité à droite) is a right-of-way rule long observed in France and some European countries: at intersections where no traffic lights, signs, or markings explicitly assign right-of-way, vehicles approaching from the right have priority. This rule originated from an era when roads had no unified signage, and it remains codified in France's Highway Code, applying at numerous urban intersections and older roundabouts. The challenge it poses for autonomous driving systems is that priority is not given by explicit signals like traffic lights or stop lines, but depends on real-time inference of approaching vehicles' direction, relative speed, and intent. The Arc de Triomphe roundabout is a textbook scenario for this rule: vehicles inside the roundabout must yield to traffic merging from right-side entrances, which is the opposite of the "vehicles in the roundabout have priority" logic in most countries, requiring the system to handle multiple simultaneous constraints of yielding, path selection, and game-theoretic interaction.

"No takeover" is a commonly used term when evaluating intelligent assisted driving capabilities, referring to a vehicle completing an entire route or scenario without triggering manual intervention — meaning the driver did not need to intervene in steering, braking, or acceleration because the system could not handle a situation. It is an important metric for measuring a driving system's end-to-end performance on real roads, but its boundaries must be noted: no takeover only means the system completed the task on this particular route under the traffic conditions at that time, and does not equate to the system being able to reliably handle all similar scenarios. At highly complex intersections like the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, even human drivers often hesitate and misjudge, so a single no-takeover demonstration reflects technical potential and validation progress rather than the final performance of a production version.

R7 World Model: From "Seeing" to "Understanding"

This challenge was powered by the Momenta R7 World Model. Hou Xiaohong, General Manager of Chery Europe (Germany) R&D Center, Peter Matkin, CTO, and Rao Qing, Chief Architect of Global Solutions at Momenta, all rode in the test vehicle together.

The core approach of the R7 World Model is to learn physical laws, common sense, and causal relationships from massive amounts of real driving data, thereby enhancing environmental understanding, prediction, and planning capabilities. In terms of specific driving behaviors, it supports stronger interactive game-theoretic reasoning, smarter lane selection, and flexible navigation through complex spaces.

The world model provides the foundation for understanding and reasoning, but to truly adapt to European roads, localized accumulation is also needed. Momenta leverages years of European R&D and road testing experience to continuously adapt to local traffic regulations, traffic environments, and driving habits. In the company's own words, it's about going from understanding technology and regulations to understanding traffic and users.

World Model is an important technical direction in current intelligent driving and artificial intelligence, referring to a system that learns from massive data to build an internal abstract model capable of predicting environmental evolution. Unlike traditional modular architectures of perception–rules–control, the world model attempts to enable systems to understand physical laws, common sense, and causal relationships like humans do, thereby reasoning about "what will happen next." In driving scenarios, this means the system can not only identify vehicles, pedestrians, and lane markings, but also predict the behavioral intent of other traffic participants and plan its own actions accordingly. Momenta's R7 World Model is exactly this approach in practice: it learns interactive game-theoretic reasoning, lane selection strategies, and flexible navigation in complex spaces through real driving data, rather than relying on manually written rules, thus possessing stronger generalization potential when facing long-tail scenarios such as unmarked intersections and counterintuitive priority rules.

Market Success and Intelligent Advancement

The timing of this autonomous driving demonstration coincides with JAECOO's strong momentum in the European market. After officially entering the French market in April this year, in just half a year, new vehicle registrations reached 2,589 units in September, with market share rising to 1.6%. In the same month, the JAECOO 7 topped the UK's overall model sales rankings.

Behind the market performance is OMODA & JAECOO's insight into the needs of new elite users. Targeting those who pursue quality, value driving experience, and love outdoor exploration, the JAECOO 7 combines refined off-road design aesthetics with high-quality driving experience, while the SHS super hybrid balances performance and efficiency.

Hou Xiaohong stated: "We hope the JAECOO 7 can not only accompany users in exploring a broader life, but also deliver a more natural and composed experience in daily driving."

Long-Term Localized R&D Strategy

OMODA & JAECOO currently has R&D centers in Spain, France, and Germany, with a UK R&D center planned to open in late autumn 2026, continuously conducting localized R&D around European user needs.

The partnership with Momenta aims to combine advanced autonomous driving technology with European road environments and driving habits, refining an intelligent assisted driving experience that is closer to local users. The JAECOO 7 equipped with the Momenta R7 World Model is still in the testing and validation phase and will officially meet European users in the future.

From the technical demonstration at the Arc de Triomphe roundabout to the composure and convenience of daily travel, there remains a great deal of iterative testing, validation, and experience feedback in between. This no-takeover challenge at least proves one thing: at intersections with the most complex rules and tightest spaces, autonomous driving systems can already make judgments approaching those of experienced human drivers.

One-line Summary

JAECOO and Momenta completed the first no-takeover autonomous driving challenge at the Arc de Triomphe roundabout, validating the R7 World Model's capabilities at extremely complex intersections.

Paragraph Summary

JAECOO and Momenta partnered to complete the first no-takeover autonomous driving challenge at the Arc de Triomphe roundabout in Paris — dubbed the "world's most diabolical roundabout" — covering approximately 11.38 kilometers with unmarked roads, 12 roundabout exits, the counterintuitive "priority to the right" rule, and construction detours. The JAECOO 7 test vehicle, equipped with the Momenta R7 World Model, learns physical laws and causal relationships from massive real driving data, enabling stronger interactive game-theoretic reasoning and lane selection, supported by Momenta's localized adaptation in Europe. Meanwhile, JAECOO has shown strong performance in the European market, with 2,589 new vehicle registrations in France in September, and the JAECOO 7 topping the UK's overall model sales rankings. The vehicle is still in the testing and validation phase.