– Baidu received the first license to test autonomous vehicles with no safety operator on board in

Beijing

, paving the way for launching paid fully driverless robotaxi service in

China’s

capital city after the success in

Wuhan

and

Chongqing

– Baidu is expanding the operation area, fleet size and hours of commercialized fully driverless robotaxi service in central Chinese city

Wuhan

– Baidu aims to build the world’s biggest fully driverless ride-hailing area in 2023, and plans to put an additional 200 fully driverless robotaxis into operation the same year

BEIJING


,


Dec. 29, 2022


/PRNewswire/ — Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888) (“Baidu” or the “Company”), a leading AI company with strong internet foundation, today announced a major step forward for its autonomous ride-hailing business in

Beijing

, as the company has been granted the Chinese capital’s first-ever license to test drive fully driverless vehicles on public roads, with no driver or safety operator in the car.

Earlier this week, Baidu also announced a major expansion of its commercialized fully driverless robotaxi service in

Wuhan

, tripling the size of its operation area, increasing the number of robotaxis in service and expanding operating time to include key evening hours.

These two moves together mark a major milestone on Baidu’s ambitious autonomous ride-hailing roadmap, as the company plans to put an additional 200 fully driverless robotaxis into operation across

China

in 2023, aiming to cover the

largest fully driverless ride-hailing service area in the world

by the end of the same year.

By receiving


Beijing’s

first license to test vehicles

with no driver or safety operator in the car, Baidu is one step closer to providing fully driverless ride-hailing service to residents in the capital city. A total of 10 fully driverless test vehicles will travel across a 20 square kilometer area in Beijing Yizhuang Economic Development Zone, covering a series of complex urban road scenarios. With the start of test drives in

Beijing

, the cumulative area of operation and testing for Baidu’s fully driverless fleet now covers a total area of

over 100 square kilometers

across

China

.

In

Wuhan

, with its most recent expansion, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service platform Apollo Go now covers an area of 130 square kilometers (50 square miles) in the city, serving a population of 1 million. The expansion extends the coverage of Baidu’s fully driverless service from Junshan New Town to the third to fifth ring of Wuhan Economic Development Zone. At the same time, the operating hours of fully driverless robotaxi service in Junshan New Town have been extended to

7:00-23:00

in order to better meet the public’s needs for evening travel.

Baidu now becomes the first and currently the only vendor in

China

to provide commercialized fully driverless robotaxi service during evening hours.

Apollo Go has witnessed stunning growth in

Wuhan

over the past several months, having begun operations in the city in

May 2022

. Three months later,


Wuhan

became the first city in

China

to host commercial operation of fully driverless autonomous driving

after Apollo Go upgraded its services in August. As one of the leading centers of automotive industry innovation in central

China

,

Wuhan

has been actively leading the way in enacting policies to support autonomous driving. At present,

Wuhan

has over 400 kilometers of roads fully enabled by intelligent networks, ranking at the forefront in

China

.

The speed of Apollo Go’s expansion in

Beijing

and

Wuhan

is backed by Baidu’s years of experience in autonomous driving technology. Drawing on a decade of R&D investments in this area, Baidu’s mature technology and systems allow the company to deploy autonomous driving at scale. Baidu has accumulated more than 40 million kilometers of L4 autonomous driving test mileage and 3,477 autonomous driving patent families, holding the world record for number of autonomous driving patents for four consecutive years. In addition to

Wuhan

, Apollo Go currently provides commercialized autonomous ride-hailing services in cities including

Beijing

,

Shenzhen

and

Chongqing

. Apollo Go’s service in

Chongqing

and

Wuhan

features driverless commercial operation, with no driver or safety operator in the car, making the company the first in

China

to operate fully driverless robotaxis in multiple cities. By the end of the third quarter of this year, the cumulative order volume of Apollo Go exceeded

1.4 million

,

ranking Baidu as the world’s largest robotaxi service provider.

“Backed by the company’s solid foundation in AI, Baidu provides a safe, intelligent and efficient autonomous driving technology system, from fully driverless operation to large-scale commercial operation,” said

Wang Chong

, Chief

Brand Officer

of Baidu Intelligent Driving Group. “The generalization ability of Baidu’s autonomous driving technology has progressed at a more advanced pace than expected. Now, the lead time to deploy autonomous driving technology in a new city is only 20 days.”

About Baidu

Founded in 2000, Baidu’s mission is to make the complicated world simpler through technology. Baidu is a leading AI company with strong Internet foundation, trading on the NASDAQ under “BIDU” and HKEX under “9888.” One Baidu ADS represents eight Class A ordinary shares.

Media Contact


[email protected]

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