Chinese Internet giant Baidu reported that its Apollo Go ride-hailing service has successfully transitioned to offering 100% fully driverless services in "practically the entire Wuhan municipality." It said that all its vehicles in the city are now operating without the need for human safety officers on board, reducing the cost per vehicle in the second quarter of 2024 by more than half compared to the same period in 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, 55% of trips in Wuhan were fully driverless.
In Wuhan, Apollo Go's 400 vehicles are now available to seven million people around the clock, Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, told analysts, but its share of the city's ride hailing market is just 1%. The number of Apollo Go's pickup points at the end of June had increased by over three-fold from the previous quarter, he added. Nationwide, Apollo Go provided about 899,000 rides to the public in the second quarter, marking a 26% year-over-year increase. That equates to about 69,000 rides a week. Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving ride hailing service, recently reported that it is now making 100,000 paid trips a week in the US.
Apollo Go has also begin large-scale open-road testing of its sixth-generation autonomous vehicle, the RT6. Equipped with a battery-swapping solution, RT6 is priced at below 30,000 US dollars for mass production, Baidu said. "After thorough testing, we plan to officially roll out RT6 into our fleet, establishing a strong foundation for further substantial cost reductions in Apollo Go operations," Li added. Source: Motley Fool transcript
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