BEIJING, Sep. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Baidu
announced that it will begin public testing of Apollo Go in
Shanghai, marking the fifth city
where passengers have the ability to trial the robotaxi mobile
platform. Baidu is the only company to offer this service in the
three first-tier cities of Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.
The Shanghai operation will
include 150 stations opened in phases throughout the city to
provide users convenient access to residential areas, commercial
areas, offices and public transportation. Passengers can use the
service from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.
every day of the week.
This announcement comes on the heels of another milestone for
Baidu Apollo – the expansion of Apollo Go to Tongzhou District in
Beijing, where the service will
enable residents and visitors of the suburb to experience travel in
an autonomous vehicle. The first batch of routes in Tongzhou will
cover a total of 22 stations– with a total distance over 31 miles,
allowing for more than 100 trips every day.
According to a recent IHS Markit report, the major market
potential for autonomous vehicles in the future will be pinned on
business models such as robotaxis, which are estimated to account
for more than 60 percent of China's future mobility sharing market by
2030, exceeding $201 billion. IHS
also estimates that this portion of the market will be dominated by
two to three robotaxi service providers, with the leading provider
occupying more than 40 percent of the market share.
The autonomous driving industry in China has recently entered a new stage of
development, characterized by trialing the implementation of
large-scale applications. Wei Dong,
vice president and chief safety operation officer of Baidu's
Intelligent Driving Group, said that achieving this large-scale
implementation requires three steps: regionalization,
commercialization and verification via unmanned on-road operation.
Baidu has already made headway in autonomous ride-hailing,
achieving a 60% drop in cost per mile with the 5th
generation robotaxi vehicle release in June. With the launch in
Shanghai, Baidu Apollo is
continuing to deliver on China's
vision of developing a world-leading autonomous driving market.
As of the end of August 2021,
Apollo L4 autonomous driving accumulated 8.7 million test miles.
Following the launch in Shanghai,
Baidu plans to bring Apollo Go services to 25 more cities in the
next three years, making autonomous driving a reality for 3 million
people in China.
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. Baidu is traded on the NASDAQ
Global Select Market under the symbol "BIDU", and on the main board
of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code "9888".
Currently, one ADS represents eight Class A ordinary
shares.
Media Contact:
intlcomm@baidu.com
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SOURCE Baidu, Inc.