Chinese search engine Baidu announced on Monday that it has received permission to operate fully driverless robotaxi services on open roads from two Chinese cities, the first of their kind in the country. Permits granted by the southwestern municipality of Chongqing and the central city of Wuhan allow commercial robot wasps to offer rides to the public without drivers in the car without human safety. It will take effect on Monday. Baidu said they marked a “turning point” in China’s policy towards autonomous driving. “These permits are of deep significance to the industry,” Wei Dong, chief security officer of Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group, told Reuters in an interview. “If we think about space exploration, this moment is equivalent to landing on the moon.”
Initially, Baidu will deploy a batch of five fee-based robot axes in each city, where they will be allowed to work in designated areas from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Wuhan and from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Chongqing, the company said in a statement. claim. The service areas cover 30 square kilometers in Chongqing’s Yongchuan District and 13 square kilometers in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone. In April, Baidu’s Apollo and Toyota-backed Pony.ai said they had received approval in Beijing to deploy robotaxis without safety drivers in the driver’s seat on open roads in an area of 60 square kilometers. But Beijing permits still require them to have a safety driver in the passenger seat. These services have started.
China’s efforts to speed up autonomous vehicle testing
Baidu is also in talks with local governments in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen to secure licenses to test fully unmanned and unpaid robot axes in those cities within a year, Wei says. China’s efforts to speed up autonomous vehicle testing and licensing come as U.S. regulators also push for autonomous driving policies setting milestones. In January, Cruise received a permit from the California Public Utilities Commission that allows it to offer fully driverless paid rides from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. on select San Francisco streets.
Apollo Go, Baidu’s robot taxi service, has operated more than 1 million rides in 10 Chinese cities since its launch in 2020. Baidu has not reported any problems with the service and has not provided a breakdown of how much it has invested in the project.
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