Baidu’s robotaxi can drive without a steering wheel, car price slashed

BEIJING — Chinese language tech large Baidu introduced Thursday it has lower the value of its robotaxi autos by practically half, decreasing prices for a nascent enterprise.

The brand new car, the Apollo RT6, is an electrical automotive that prices 250,000 yuan (about $37,313) to supply — with out counting on a third-party producer, Baidu mentioned. That value is 48% lower than the 480,000 yuan manufacturing price introduced final yr for the Apollo Moon, made in partnership with state-owned BAIC Group’s Arcfox electrical automotive model.

The Apollo RT6 is about to start out working on China’s roads within the second half of subsequent yr beneath Baidu’s self-driving robotaxi enterprise.

The corporate’s robotaxi enterprise, known as Apollo Go, obtained Beijing metropolis’s approval in November to start charging fares for rides inside a suburban district. Nevertheless, a human workers member should nonetheless sit within the automotive.

In April, municipal authorities loosened restrictions on whether or not the workers member needed to sit within the driver’s seat, paving the best way to completely eliminating the price of a taxi driver. It stays unclear when the Chinese language authorities would permit robotaxis to cost fares for rides with none human workers within the autos.

Baidu mentioned the corporate goals to supply 100,000 Apollo RT6 autos over an unspecified time frame.

“This huge price discount will allow us to deploy tens of 1000’s of [autonomous driving vehicles] throughout China,” Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, mentioned in an announcement. “We’re shifting in the direction of a future the place taking a robotaxi shall be half the price of taking a taxi at present.”

Apollo Go operates in 10 cities in China, with plans to succeed in 65 cities by 2025, and 100 cities in 2030, the corporate mentioned.

Along with Baidu, start-ups comparable to Pony.ai and WeRide are testing robotaxi companies in China.

To develop in China, firms want to check robotaxis and acquire licenses in every metropolis they need to function in, Elinor Leung, managing director of Asia telecom and web analysis at CLSA, instructed CNBC earlier this week.

Till cities acknowledge one another’s testing data, robotaxi firms might want to elevate more cash to check extra automobiles in numerous cities, she mentioned.