Baidu unveils Autonomous Vehicle: Plans to Launch as Robotaxi

Baidu Inc. has showcased its new autonomous vehicle and has plans to utilize it as a robotaxi service in China next year.

Baidu Inc., the world’s largest search engine, on Thursday, showcased its new autonomous vehicle (AV) with a removable steering wheel, with plans to utilize it for its robotaxi service in China next year. According to a statement from Baidu, the cost per unit will be reduced to 250,000 yuan ($37,031.55) for the new model from 480,000 yuan for the previous iteration.

"We will be able to deploy tens of thousands of AVs across China thanks to this tremendous cost reduction", said Robin Li, the company's CEO at the Baidu World conference. He further made a statement saying, "It won't cost as much to take a robotaxi in the future as it does to take a taxi right now.”

The new vehicle will include eight lidars and twelve cameras alongside the car, giving it autonomous Level 4 capabilities that do not require human involvement. Similar to radars, lidars are detection devices, except instead of using radio waves, they employ pulsed laser light. The new model's maker was kept a secret by the corporation.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, stated that the business plans to begin mass producing its robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals in 2024 and estimated that a ride in one will be less expensive than a bus ticket.

A robotaxi without a steering wheel was also unveiled by Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo last year. The company said it expected to introduce its "totally autonomous vehicles" to the U.S. in the upcoming years.

To deploy such vehicles in the real world, automakers and IT firms all around the world are still awaiting regulatory approval.

When the Chinese government approves it, the car won't have a steering wheel, according to Baidu Senior Vice President Li Zhenyu, who also added that the new AV can drive just as well as a qualified human driver with more than 20 years of experience. A number of businesses in China are working to make the widespread usage of driverless vehicles a reality, including Baidu, which in 2017 founded its autonomous driving subsidiary Apollo.

Its competitors in this field include WeRide, which has funding from Nissan Motor and Guangzhou Automobile Group, and Pony.ai, which is supported by Toyota Motor.

Since its introduction in 2020, Apollo Go, Baidu's robo taxi service, has run over 1 million trips across 10 Chinese cities, and in April, Baidu announced that it has been granted permission to use robotaxis in Beijing that are not operated by people in the driver's seat on public roads.