Baidu Gets China's First Permit to Charge Robotaxi Users
Xu Wei
DATE:  Mar 16 2021
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Baidu Gets China's First Permit to Charge Robotaxi Users Baidu Gets China's First Permit to Charge Robotaxi Users

(Yicai Global) March 16 -- Baidu has become China's first company to be given the green light to charge passengers for self-driving car rides, according to the tech giant.

The search engine behemoth has been given permission by local traffic authorities in northern China's Cangzhou to demonstrate commercial autopilot operations, the Beijing-based company said in a statement today.

Baidu will deploy 35 vehicles to conduct commercial services in the city in Hebei province, as well as 10 self-driving cars for testing. The company can explore discounts, trial tickets, and voluntary payments.

In August 2020, Baidu launched its Apollo Go robotaxi service in downtown Cangzhou to allow customers to book rides for free online. After that, the firm received similar permits in central China's Changsha and Beijing in 2020, becoming the only company to be approved to carry out driverless open road testing in the capital city. So far Apollo Go has served more than 210,000 passengers, with plans to expand to 30 cities in the next three years.

In order to receive the permit in Cangzhou, Baidu needed to complete 50,000 kilometers of open road testing with zero accidents. By March 1, the company's autopilot fleet in the prefecture-level city had finished almost 524,700 km of testing mileage.

Baidu's autopilot platform Apollo has 500 vehicles that have conducted open road tests in nearly 30 cities around the world. In China, the open source platform has more than 210 autonomous driving licenses.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi

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Keywords:   Baidu,Cangzhou,Apollo Go,robotaxi