China officially launches self-driving taxi service in Beijing

Baidu and Pony will each provide a fleet of 10 self-driving taxis in a 6,000-hectare area in the Yizhuang economic and technological development zone, south of Beijing.

China has officially launched a robotaxi service in the suburbs of Beijing, marking a new stage in the development of intelligent transportation systems.

Earlier this month, Beijing city authorities allowed two tech giants, Baidu and Pony.ai, to deploy robotaxi services, according to Xinhua.

This is the first time a fully autonomous vehicle has been licensed to operate in a major city in the world .

Baidu and Pony.ai are leaders in China’s autonomous driving industry. Each company’s robotaxi service operates a fleet of 10 autonomous vehicles in a 6,000-hectare area in the Yizhuang Economic and Technological Development Zone, south of Beijing.

Baidu plans to expand robotaxi services to 65 cities by 2025 and 100 cities by 2030.

Global consultancy IHS Markit forecasts that by 2030, revenue from China's self-driving taxi services could reach 1.3 trillion yuan ($188.6 billion), accounting for 60% of the country's total online ride-hailing market revenue at that time.

Meanwhile, Yale Zhang, CEO of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automotive Foresight, predicts that the coverage of self-driving taxi services in China will expand in the future as self-driving car systems are updated with data and algorithms are improved.

He said robotaxi is expected to pave the way for the development of private self-driving vehicles, potentially becoming a revolutionary technology that can change people's lives./.

VNA

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