Baidu granted autonomous driving test permission with empty front row in Beijing

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s tech giant Baidu was granted the permission to conduct autonomous driving road test with an empty front row in Beijing, the company announced on November 21. 

Photo credit: Baidu Apollo

According to the company, Baidu was among the first companies to be allowed to conduct such driverless tests in the capital of China. This signifies Baidu’s steady facilitation of the fully unmanned autonomous driving commercialization. 

Driven by a series of policies that benefit the autonomous driving industry, Apollo Go, Baidu's autonomous driving ride-hailing service platform, has built the largest unmanned autonomous driving fleet in China. Moreover, Baidu Apollo has launched the first batch of 10 Apollo Moon fifth-generation unmanned vehicles to carry out empty front row road tests within a 60-square-kilometer area of Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area (BJHAD).

Up to now, Baidu Apollo has accumulated a total autonomous driving road test distance of over 36 million kilometers. Its Apollo Go Robotaxi platform has launched commercial self-driving ride-hailing service in Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, Changsha, Hefei, Yangquan, and other cities, among which Chongqing and Wuhan have realized paid driverless services without safety drivers in the car. As of July, Apollo Go has served more than 1 million orders, making Baidu the world's largest autonomous driving mobility service provider.