>
Chinese technology giant, Baidu, has unveiled the next vehicle to join its self-driving taxi service, Apollo Go.
According to Baidu, the new model, the Apollo RT6, has the road skills of a driver with 20 years’ experience.
Under Chinese regulation, the autonomous cars currently still require a safety driver’s presence.
But Baidu said the RT6’s detachable steering wheel could be replaced by extra seats, vending machines, desks or games consoles in the future.
Each Apollo RT6 would cost 250,000 yuan (£31,000), significantly less than previous models, the company said.
Speaking at the company’s annual technology conference, Baidu’s co-founder and chief executive, Robin Li, said: “This massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of [automated vehicles] across China.
“We are moving towards a future where taking a robo-taxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today.”
Baidu wants the RT6 to join its existing fleet in the second half of 2023, for a small-scale trial, and plans to eventually have 100,000 of them on the roads.
The comoany said its robo-taxis, running on a trial basis in 10 Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, have given more than one million rides since its service launched, in 2020.
There had been discussion on the country’s social-network, Weibo, about the impact on jobs if they became official, BBC China analyst, Kerry Allen, said.
“While pilot schemes have been rolled out, there have been perceptions online that they are still ‘hard to find’ or that appointments are difficult to make, in order to try one out,” she added.
(BBC)