The government agencies in Wuhan and Chongqing’s Yongchuan District have permitted the Chinese internet company to charge fares for providing robotaxi rides
A fully driverless robotaxi of Baidu offering service to the public on open roads. (Credit: Baidu, Inc.)
Baidu has obtained permits in two Chinese cities to operate commercial fully driverless robotaxis during the daytime on open roads through its autonomous ride-hailing service Apollo Go.
The Chinese internet company has been granted permission by government agencies in Wuhan and Chongqing’s Yongchuan District.
Apollo Go is now authorised to charge fares for providing robotaxi rides in the two cities.
Baidu vice president and intelligent driving group chief safety operation officer Wei Dong said: “This is a tremendous qualitative change. Fully driverless cars providing rides on open roads to paying customers means we have finally come to the moment that the industry has been longing for.
“We believe these permits are a key milestone on the path to the inflection point when the industry can finally roll out fully autonomous driving services at scale.”
Baidu plans to start the fully driverless robotaxi services with five Apollo 5th gen robotaxis. The service area of the robotaxis will span 30km2 in Chongqing’s Yongchuan District and 13km2 in the Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone.
According to the company, its robotaxis had to pass through various steps of testing and licensing in order to receive the permits. These included testing with a safety operator in the driving seat and testing by having a safety operator in the passenger seat.
Baidu’s robotaxis are said to have multiple safety mechanisms. Among these are an autonomous driving system, a safety operation system, remote driving capability, and monitoring redundancy.
All the safety features are backed by real-world data that includes a total test mileage of more than 32 million kilometers driven by its autonomous vehicles to date, claimed Baidu.
In April 2022, Baidu announced that it had been authorised to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public on open roads in Beijing. The authorisation was granted by the head office of the Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area (BJHAD).