Baidu granted China’s first permits for business absolutely driverless ride-hailing companies

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Baidu, Inc., a number one AI firm with sturdy web basis, has secured the primary permits in China to supply business absolutely driverless robotaxi companies to the general public on open roads.

Apollo Go, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service, is now approved to gather fares for robotaxi rides—fully with out human drivers within the automobile—in Chongqing and Wuhan, two of China’s largest megacities. The permits mark a key turning level for the way forward for mobility in China, resulting in an eventual growth of driverless ride-hailing companies to paying customers throughout the nation.

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Baidu approved to gather fares for robotaxi rides—fully with out human drivers within the automobile.


It is a large qualitative change. Totally driverless vehicles offering rides on open roads to paying prospects means now we have lastly come to the second that the trade has been eager for. We consider these permits are a key milestone on the trail to the inflection level when the trade can lastly roll out absolutely autonomous driving companies at scale.

—Wei Dong, Vice President and Chief Security Operation Officer of Baidu’s Clever Driving Group

The permits had been granted to Baidu by authorities businesses in Wuhan and Chongqing’s Yongchuan District. Each cities have been pioneering new approaches to clever transportation in recent times, from growing infrastructure to updating new rules for AVs.

The Wuhan Financial & Technological Growth Zone (WHDZ) has revamped 321 kilometers of roads for testing of AVs since 2021, of which 106 kilometers are coated by the 5G-powered V2X infrastructure. Chongqing has designated an space within the Yongchuan District as a pilot zone for autonomous driving, through which 30 robotaxis have accrued a check mileage of 1 million kilometers.

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Having obtained the permits, Baidu will start to supply absolutely driverless robotaxi companies within the designated areas in Wuhan from 9 am to five pm, and Chongqing from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm, with 5 Apollo 5th gen robotaxis working in every metropolis. The areas of service cowl 13 sq. kilometers within the Wuhan Financial & Technological Growth Zone, and 30 sq. kilometers in Chongqing’s Yongchuan District.

To obtain the permits, Baidu’s robotaxis have undergone a number of steps of testing and licensing, ranging from testing with a security operator within the driving seat, to testing with a security operator within the passenger seat, earlier than lastly receiving authorization to function with no human driver or operator within the car.

As the one firm granted such permits from two Chinese language megacities, Baidu’s robotaxis include multi-layer mechanisms to make sure final security, together with the autonomous driving system, monitoring redundancy, distant driving functionality and a strong security operation system, all of that are backed by a large trove of real-world information together with a complete check mileage of greater than 32 million kilometers (~20 million miles) pushed by Baidu’s AVs thus far.

By the top of March 2022, Baidu has ranked No.1 within the accumulative variety of autonomous driving patent purposes in China, totaling 4,000; amongst them, the variety of world patent households for high-level autonomous driving has exceeded 1,500, rating first worldwide. Having already expanded to all first-tier cities in China, masking Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, Apollo Go has now surfaced to grow to be the world’s largest robotaxi service supplier, lately reaching the milestone of a couple of million orders.

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