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China’s Baidu launches ‘robotaxi’ with detachable steering wheel | Science & Technology News


Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence giant Baidu has unveiled a new self-driving vehicle with a detachable steering wheel – with plans to use it in its robotaxi service next year.

Baidu senior vice president Li Zhenyu said at a conference, the Apollo RT6 will run on the road without a steering wheel once the Chinese authorities approve.

He added that the driving ability of an autonomous vehicle is comparable to that of a skilled driver with more than 20 years of experience.

The all-electric car will cost 250,000 yuan (£31,000) per unit compared to 480,000 yuan (£59,000) for the previous generation.

“This massive cost reduction will allow us to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles (AVs) across China,” Baidu chief executive Robin Li said at the Baidu World 2022 technology conference.

“We’re aiming for a future where using a robotaxi will be half the cost of a taxi ride today.”

The new car will have “Level 4 automation” without human intervention, with 8 lids and 12 cameras on the side of the vehicle.

The lid is a detection system that, similar to radar, uses pulsed laser light rather than radio waves.

The company did not disclose the manufacturer for the new model.

Baidu already runs Apollo Go, an autonomous ride-hailing service that uses self-driving robots with a safety officer sitting in the driver’s or passenger’s seat.

The service has operated over a million journeys across 10 Chinese cities since its launch in 2020.

Baidu said in April that it had received a license to deploy the robot without a human in the driver’s seat on open roads in Beijing.

China aspires to lead the world in autonomous driving technology, but falls short of the US in introducing such services.

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Alphabet’s Waymo to begin offering driverless taxis in Phoenix, Arizona in 2020.

The company says it plans to roll out its fully autonomous vehicles in the US in the coming years.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a meeting with investors in April that the company aims to begin mass production of its robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals by 2024 and predicted that a trip by robotaxi would cost less than a bus ticket.



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