Chinese internet giant joins driverless race with bus plans
CHINESE internet giant Baidu will have a self-driving bus on the road soon as it raced for a lead in autonomous vehicles, chief executive Robin Li said.
Baidu is collaborating with an array of companies on autonomous cars, and is working with a large bus maker in China to have a self-driving bus running a route by next year, Li said.
Most major vehicle makers and technology titans, including Google-parent Alphabet, have been stepping up efforts on autonomous driving, convinced that these systems could eliminate most road accidents.
Apple has a testing permit in California.
US-based Tesla boasts that its models are built with the hardware for self-driving in the event of regulators giving the technology a green light.
US chip maker Intel has a partnership with Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, and plans for its own fleet of selfdriving cars.
Li said Baidu has a solid plan to have its Apollo software platform in fully-autonomous production cars by the year 2021, and in semi-autonomous cars in two years.
Apollo software will provide smarts for navigating cars, with Baidu providing information, entertainment and other online offerings to passengers, he said.
“Our vision is that once a person is in the car, you never need to touch your phone anymore – everything in the car is a better experience,” Li said.
Last month, Baidu announced a $1.5-billion (R20.3-billion) investment in autonomous driving projects over the next three years, as it sought to diversify its portfolio and compete with rivals.
In July, the company launched an initial version of autonomous driving platform Apollo.
While Apollo software is open and free, there are lots of things Baidu can do to make money, such as providing car map services, entertainment or even insurance, Li said.
Baidu’s search engine dominates the Chinese internet, and online ads are a key revenue stream.
But since a crackdown by authorities on Baidu’s online advertising business after a much-publicised scandal over promoting a fake medical treatment, China’s Google is seeking to focus on artificial intelligence and is investing heavily in the sector.
Baidu is pumping 15% of its revenue into research, with nearly all of that going to artificial intelligence. –