Baidu launches first capital-city driverless cab service in Beijing

Chinese language search engine and cloud analytics agency Baidu has received a allow to supply a driverless ride-hailing service in Beijing. It mentioned the brand new taxi service would be the “first-ever totally driverless fleet” in any capital metropolis on the earth. It follows the rollout of comparable driverless cab (“robotaxi”) companies – “with no human driver or security operators within the automobile” – in Wuhan and Chongqing, additionally supplied by Baidu. 

A complete of 10 driverless autos, operated by the agency’s Apollo Go ride-hailing platform, are to be deployed within the Yizhuang financial growth zone (SEZ), within the southeast of town. Yizhuang is an “energetic centre” for autonomous driving in China, a press release mentioned. Apollo Go is already offering round 20 rides per automobile per day within the area – “surpassing the common experience quantity of conventional on-line ride-hailing companies”, the corporate mentioned.

The Beijing Excessive-Stage Automated Demonstration Space (BJHAD) within the Yizhuang growth zone, the place autonomous autos are at the moment permitted, is to develop in measurement from 60 sq. kilometres to 500 sq. kilometres, in accordance with plans set out within the metropolis authorities’s 2023 ‘work report’. The town plans, as properly, to open “pathways” for autonomous autos to hook up with town’s airport, notably for logistics operations, mentioned Baidu.

Baidu has been creating autonomous driving companies for a decade already, and claims 50 million kilometres of take a look at mileage” on Stage 4 autonomous driving. It holds over 4,600 patent households for autonomous driving know-how, together with the “biggest variety of high-level autonomous driving patents on the earth”, it mentioned. Baidu Apollo is the one Chinese language operator ranked on a Guidehouse Insights listing of the highest autonomous driving distributors on the earth.

Within the final quarter of 2022, Apollo Go supplied 561,000 rides to the general public, up 162 % on the year-ago interval. The service had carried two million “rides”, as of the top of January, it claims.