Baidu’s Apollo Go Launches Fully Unmanned Automatic Driving Travel Service in Beijing

On March 17th, Baidu’s Apollo Go was allowed to carry out a demonstration of its unmanned automated driving service in Beijing. This is the first time in the world that unmanned motor vehicles have been implemented in a capital city. So far, Apollo Go has started unmanned automated driving travel services in Beijing, Wuhan and Chongqing. Intelligent and connected vehicles are rapidly advancing the commercial application process of unmanned automated driving, seizing the industrial highland of intelligent and connected vehicles and accelerating the cultivation of more advantageous digital industrial clusters.

It is reported that Apollo Go has invested a total of 10 unmanned automated driving vehicles this time, and carried out demonstrations of its unmanned operations in Beijing’s Economic and Technological Development Zone within a designated area of 60 ㎞². The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, as one of the areas with the highest user stickiness for Apollo Go, has an average daily order volume of over 20 bicycles, surpassing traditional online car-hailing. “Unmanned vehicles and radishes” has become a new choice for Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area residents to travel daily.

At the same time, users have been satisfied with the driverless cars. The data shows that the satisfaction evaluation of Apollk Go APP users is 4.9 stars, of which 94.19% have given it 5 stars.

Developing an intelligent and connected vehicle automobile industry is an important part of building Beijing into a benchmark city for global digital economy. In 2023, Beijing plans to expand to the Yizhuang Development Area on the basis of the existing 60 ㎞², and gradually complete the expansion of the demonstration zone of 500 ㎞² throughout the whole city. It will also explore the opening of unmanned operation lines from the Economic Development Zone to the airport to realize the commercial operation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei transportation logistics.

Now, Beijing’s high-level automated driving demonstration zone has started its 3.0 stage and will gradually complete four vital tasks: replication and promotion, technology iteration, policy innovation and industrial agglomeration. Under the principle of “safety first and account efficiency”, it will promote a manned/unmanned demonstration.

Opening up new fields and new tracks, shaping new kinetic energy and advantages for development, China is looking to achieve the goal of being a strong country in both science and technology. At present, China ranks first in the world in the application of automated driving technology, R&D and implementation, and Apollo Go is actively promoting the large-scale operation of unmanned automated driving.

According to some statistics, in the past two years, people have made proposals for intelligent and connected automobiles as well as automated driving related legislations, vehicle insurance, traffic accident liability compensation, data security and privacy protection, and others. Many are calling for promotion and the construction and improvement of relevant legal guarantee systems as soon as possible, and opening up a new path for automated driving’s large-scale commercial operations.

Baidu began to lay out the field of automated driving in 2013, and has been insisting on pressure and investment in R&D for the last ten years, driving long-term development with its technological innovation. Baidu, Inc.’s Apollo L4 automated driving has accumulated over 50 million km, with over 4,600 automated driving patent families, among which the number of high-level automated driving patent families ranks first in the world.

SEE ALSO: Baidu’s Apollo Go Launches Pilot Autonomous Driving Services in Hefei

Nowadays, Baidu‘s Apollo Go is comprehensively promoting the large-scale application of unmanned automated driving. Apollo Go has carried out automated driving travel services in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing and other cities, and is also the first enterprise to carry out unmanned automated driving travel services in Beijing, Chongqing and Wuhan. In 2023, Apollo Go will continue to expand its business scale and strive to build the world’s largest unmanned operation service area.