Chinese gov’t gives greenlight to first fully autonomous taxi service

• 3 September 2022
• Construction Focus
• 818 Views

The Chinese government has granted permits to Chinese technology company Baidu to first develop and run the fully driverless “robotaxi” service on open roads.

Named “Apollo Go”, the service is now authorised to run in Chongqing and Wuhan, with five Apollo vehicles operating in each city, according to GCR.

The areas of service cover 13 square kilometres in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, and 30 square kilometres in Yongchuan.

Both cities have also equipped the 5G “Vehicle to Everything” system which connects autonomous vehicles (AVs) to the internet.

The permits were granted after the cars passed tests with a safety operator in the driving seat, then the passenger seat, and later with no human driver in the vehicle.

There are also other safety measures such as the remote driving capability, developed with data gathered from over 32 million vehicles. It also has around 1,500 global patent applications relating to autonomous driving.

• Technology and Engineering