Multiple Baidu Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU) Apollo Go Robotaxis reportedly froze in China’s Wuhan, sparking concerns about the safety of Robotaxis and autonomous vehicles around the world today.
Baidu Robotaxi Outage
On Tuesday, multiple Baidu Apollo Go Robotaxis were hit by a system outage that suddenly stopped the Robotaxis in their tracks in Wuhan, located in China’s Hubei Province, according to a statement by local authorities.
Baidu didn’t immediately respond to Benzinga‘s request for comment.
The incident left passengers stranded and a purported video of the crash shared by user Zeyi Yang on X showcased a car crashing into an Apollo Go Robotaxi on a highway.
Police said that they had received multiple emergency calls related to the incidents. Following the outage, Chinese local media outlet The Paper cited anonymous sources in its report, who said that the issue was likely caused by self-check safety systems being triggered due to certain circumstances.
Baidu’s Growth
Apollo Go recently announced it would be rolling out its services to Dubai in a partnership with Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER). The service aims to align itself with Dubai's goal of having 25% of all transportation trips be autonomous by 2030.
Baidu also reported that it had surpassed the 20 million lifetime robotaxi rides milestone during the company’s earnings call on Thursday. The company also reported 3.4 million fully driverless rides in Q4, up more than 200% YoY.
The company was also partnering with Uber and Lyft Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT) to offer its services in London, with trials touted to begin this year.
Waymo’s Outage
Last year, several Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Waymo Robotaxis shut down after a fire at a PG&E Corp. (NYSE:PCG) substation caused the fleet to stop functioning. Waymo had to issue fleet-wide software updates following the incident and updated its first responder protocols.
Waymo recently shared that it was now operating in 10 cities across the U.S. and that its Driver had logged over 200 million autonomous miles. Waymo also hit the 500,000 rides per week mark, having hit the having 450,000 rides per week last year.
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