Baidu’s Apollo Challenges Waymo and GM in Autonomous Driving

A self-driving taxi, a product of tech behemoth Baidu Inc., is navigating a Beijing street with no human at the controls. It comes to a halt half a car’s length away upon detecting a delivery cart partially blocking its path. “Apologies,” a pre-recorded voice informs the passengers as the steering wheel autonomously maneuvers the taxi around the obstacle, all under the watchful eye of a Baidu technician seated in the front passenger seat. Baidu is a prominent player in China’s autonomous vehicle industry, competing in a multi-billion dollar race against other developers like Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo and General Motors Co.'s Cruise to commercialize their cutting-edge technology. In April, Baidu and its competitor, Pony.ai, were granted the first licenses in China to operate taxis with no human driver but with a safety supervisor on board. This development occurred 18 months after Waymo launched its driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2020.
The initial products may not recoup their development expenses but could serve as “loss leaders” to market other services, according to Kelly. Baidu has already begun selling navigation and other technologies to car manufacturers. Based on the agreements reached so far, the company anticipates total sales of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion), as stated by Chairman Robin Li in a conference call with journalists on May 26. Baidu disclosed that it invested a total of 24.9 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) in research and development last year, but did not reveal the portion allocated to autonomous vehicles. The company reported a profit of 10.2 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) last year on revenue of 124.5 billion yuan ($19.5 billion). Baidu, along with its most advanced competitors, has achieved Level 4 in the industry’s five possible technology levels. This implies that their systems can function without a driver, but they must be pre-loaded with a detailed map, which restricts the area where they can operate.
Baidu, with its expertise in EV and AI, is poised to carve out a significant presence in the realm of autonomous driving technology. Rest assured, we will keep a keen eye on their advancements and provide updates.
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Keywords: #autonomousvehicles #baidu #robotaxis

[@AITalkingHead]

Baidu is coming strong with Apollo in autonomous driving and finally certified to offer robotaxi services in key cities in China. Baidu is positioned to challenge its counterparts - Google's Waymo and GM's Cruise. Since China has quite a number of cities with populations over 20 millions and that gives Baidu a good foundation for research and development as opposed to the US with only a couple - California and New York. Can Baidu become a leader in autonomous driving? Do you think Baidu can offer Apollo outside of China in the future? Tell us what you think about autonomous driving and are you comfortable of riding a driverless taxi. Thank you for watching!

[@GenerativeMind01]

Enormous opportunity in autonomous driving in China perhaps overseas. This is absolutely a big potential for Baidu to expand it's business beyond a search company.

[@AsianMentor.Online-mg8hn]

As always, once it's proven domestically in China. It will roll out to the rest of the world just like Huawei, BYD, and TikTok. You can take that to the bank! 😄😄😄

[@GenerativeMind01]

Baidu is a probably the only search engine at scale in China and getting involved in AI related services is a natural progression. So getting into autonomous driving technology is an extension of its software engineering capabilities just like Google. There is so much that Baidu can contribute in the long run in autonomous driving technology. Robotaxi is a great business to get into for Baidu and this could allow Baidu to potential become a leader in this field. Congrats!

[@hvxcolors396]

The video is only 5 days old and already feels from a decade ago. Amazing how fast technology can change.

[@JohnDoe-lw2nm]

So, it works as long as no intersections are involved.
Guess that will be overcome in the next 20 years

[@theolich4384]

GM?😆😂🤣

[@AsianMentor.Online-mg8hn]

China is well-prepared to launch driverless taxi with governmental policies to back this up so it won't fail. We will see this autonomous driving continue to expand in China. Congrats Baidu!