The volume of driverless taxi services offered by Baidu, operator of China’s biggest search engine, jumped 65% in the third quarter of this year, signalling that autonomous driving is gaining traction in the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market, reports the South China Morning Post. Beijing-based Baidu, which has pushed into artificial intelligence in recent years, said on Tuesday that its Apollo Go robotaxi division completed 474,000 rides between July and September, compared to 287,000 rides recorded in the previous quarter.
The number of rides in the third quarter represented a year-on-year leap of 311%. Each autonomous taxi in the first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou completed 15 rides per day.
“We believe that our strong and improving safety track record in autonomously transporting passengers on public roads provides a strong endorsement for more cities to issue permits for fully driverless ride hailing,” the company said in a statement.
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