[ad_1]
Baidu unveiled on July 21, 2022, the sixth technology of its self-driving electrical automobile constructed for ride-hailing rides — at a price almost 50% beneath that of a mannequin introduced final yr.
Baidu
BEIJING — Chinese language tech big Baidu introduced Thursday it has reduce the worth of its robotaxi automobiles by almost half, reducing prices for a nascent enterprise.
The brand new car, the Apollo RT6, is an electrical automobile that prices 250,000 yuan (about $37,313) to supply — with out counting on a third-party producer, Baidu mentioned. That worth is 48% lower than the 480,000 yuan manufacturing price introduced final yr for the Apollo Moon, made in partnership with state-owned BAIC Group’s Arcfox electrical automobile model.
The Apollo RT6 is ready to start out working on China’s roads within the second half of subsequent yr beneath Baidu’s self-driving robotaxi enterprise.
The corporate’s robotaxi enterprise, referred to as Apollo Go, acquired Beijing metropolis’s approval in November to start charging fares for rides inside a suburban district. Nonetheless, a human employees member should nonetheless sit within the automobile.
In April, municipal authorities loosened restrictions on whether or not the employees member needed to sit within the driver’s seat, paving the best way to completely eliminating the price of a taxi driver. It stays unclear when the Chinese language authorities would enable robotaxis to cost fares for rides with none human employees within the automobiles.
We’re transferring in the direction of a future the place taking a robotaxi can be half the price of taking a taxi at the moment.
Baidu mentioned the corporate goals to supply 100,000 Apollo RT6 automobiles over an unspecified time period.
“This large price discount will allow us to deploy tens of hundreds of [autonomous driving vehicles] throughout China,” Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, mentioned in a press release. “We’re transferring in the direction of a future the place taking a robotaxi can be half the price of taking a taxi at the moment.”
Apollo Go operates in 10 cities in China, with plans to achieve 65 cities by 2025, and 100 cities in 2030, the corporate mentioned.
Along with Baidu, start-ups corresponding to Pony.ai and WeRide are testing robotaxi companies in China.
To develop in China, firms want to check robotaxis and acquire licenses in every metropolis they need to function in, Elinor Leung, managing director of Asia telecom and web analysis at CLSA, advised CNBC earlier this week.
Till cities acknowledge one another’s testing information, robotaxi firms might want to elevate extra money to check extra automobiles in numerous cities, she mentioned.
[ad_2]
Source link
