Chinese society Baidu has been authorized to provide a service from: robot taxi in the cities of Chongqing and Wuhan. The races can be booked directly from the smartphone: the car has no driver, but is powered by artificial intelligence.
Baidu, which provides its robotic axi services with the brand Apollo Go, he had already been given permission to take his driverless cars to the streets of the capital Beijing. After the first pilot tests, the project has moved on to the next phase: now the company can charge the customer for the journeys, whereas previously the service had to be strictly free. And not only that: if the cars were required to have at least one security personnel on board during the tests in Beijing, the cars can now circulate without personnel.
For this reason, Baidu explains that it is the first company to offer a true robotic axi service in China. Most competitors still use the security personnel on board the vehicles.
However, there are still some important limitations: a Wuhan the robotaxis will be in service exclusively during the timeslot of 9:00am – 5:00pm, in addition, they will be able to cover an area of only 13 square kilometers. UNTIL Chongqing the service operates from 9.30am to 4.30pm and covers an area of approximately 30 square kilometers. Both neighborhoods have few pedestrians and also have very wide streets. For this reason, robot axes can circulate freely without major safety risks. Each city will have a fleet of just 5 self-driving cars for now.
Source: Lega Nerd
