Baidu Apollo unveils autonomous ride-hailing vehicle Apollo Moon

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Baidu Apollo, along with Arcfox, an EV brand from BAIC Group, today unveiled its fifth generation of autonomous ride-hailing vehicle, the Apollo Moon. Under an all-new strategic cooperation agreement, both companies will build 1,000 Apollo Moon vehicles within 3 years.

Apollo Moon; photo credit: Baidu

The Apollo Moon’s production cost is RMB 480,000 yuan ($74,736), only one third of many autonomous vehicle models, which will help to accelerate the commercialization of its ride-hailing services. The latest generation of Apollo’s autonomous vehicle has an operating cycle of over 5 years, much longer than the previous four generations.

The Moon adopts the “ANP-Robotaxi” architecture, making it lightweight and capable of sharing intelligent driving vehicle data with other vehicles. A customized LiDAR and corresponding unmanned redundancy functions also make it possible to realize fully driverless autonomy.

Apollo Moon; photo credit: Baidu

The Apollo Moon will be geared with omni-sensors and computing unit redundancy functions as well as a precise failure detector and degradable processing algorithms, while 5G remote driving service and V2X will also be supported. Compared with its predecessors, the overall capabilities of Apollo Moon will have improved tenfold with a 99.99% success rate of ride-hailing in complex urban cityscapes.

Apollo Moon; photo credit: Baidu

On the exterior body, an electronic display is attached to the sunroof to exhibit the status of a robotaxi and allows passengers to identify their ride from afar. In terms of passenger convenience, Apollo Moon contains new features including a seat belt reminder for rear passengers, AI voice assistant, mobile app climate control, intelligent car doors and more.

Apollo Moon; photo credit: Baidu

Baidu and ARCFOX also reached a new strategic cooperation agreement to roll out 1,000 Apollo Moon robotaxis within three years, giving more people access to Apollo’s fully autonomous ride-hailing services. Recently, Baidu Apollo has begun to offer Robotaxi ride-hailing services in such cities as Beijing (newly added Tongzhou area), Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing.

Besides, ARCFOX also worked with Huawei on the ARCFOX αS ·HI, which is the first model equipped with Huawei’s HI solution for self-driving EVs. The starting price of the HI version is 388,900 yuan ($60,552) and the premium version is priced at 429,900 yuan ($66,935), both lower than the Apollo Moon.