Baidu to Add 200 Fully Driverless Robotaxis to Fleet in 2023, Aiming for World’s Largest Fully Driverless Ride-hailing Area
PR Newswire
– 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.
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SOURCE Baidu, Inc.