Baidu's Apollo Go Plans Global Expansion in Robotaxi Market

Beijing and Wuhan are cities where Baidu can commercially operate its self-driving taxis once it receives regulatory clearances. According to sources who have spoken with the company, Baidu’s self-driving taxi division, Apollo Go, is going to dive into international markets in the near future.

The news comes ahead of Tesla’s much-anticipated robotaxi event, scheduled for Thursday. Even as Tesla is showing all signs of major progress in its robotics push, industry expectations have tempered, with Canaccord’s George Gianarikas saying that expectation for big announcements might be pretty low.

Recent months have also seen other players in the robotaxi space making headlines. Another Chinese robotaxi developer, WeRide, also revealed that it had entered a partnership with ride-hailing giant Uber in order to include its vehicles on Uber’s platform for Abu Dhabi. However, the companies qualified that they have no plans to replicate this partnership in the U.S. or China. Finally, BYD and Uber revealed last July that they plan to develop “autonomous-capable vehicles” for Uber’s platform, though details of this effort remain unannounced.

Baidu’s Robotaxi services, like that of its peers such as Pony.ai, are typically highly subsidized. In some of these markets, local regulations may even require a human operator to be inside the vehicle, which does not allow for full autonomy in every case. Through late July, Baidu said its Apollo Go had performed more than 7 million robotaxi rides, indicating good momentum in the business.

Related corporate news: Baidu said Rong Luo will resign from the position of chief financial officer to become an Executive Vice President handling the company’s mobile ecosystem unit. Interim CFO Junjie He is the former leader of the mobile unit. Baidu described the change as a “rotation in management” – which it said was the “continuation of efforts to optimize leadership within the organization”.

As Apollo Go looks to expand its reach beyond China, use of partnerships and the company navigating regulatory environments will probably be of much importance in new markets to position it for competition in the rapidly evolving global autonomous vehicle landscape.