Baidu will offer self-driving taxi rides in Beijing

Baidu is expanding its fleet of robot taxis to Beijing, allowing Chinese people in the capital to get a ride in a self-driving car, although human drivers are still driving it for the time being. Previously, tests had already been carried out in smaller Chinese cities.

According to the Chinese tech giant, the robot taxis cover a network of roads with a total length of 700 kilometers in the city of Beijing. With the taxi service, which bears the name Apollo Go, customers can get on or off at about a hundred different places in the city.

Anyone who wants to take a ride with the self-driving taxis must register on Baidu Maps or on the Apollo Go website. For the time being, however, there are only 40 self-driving taxis, but there are plans for expansion if the initial introduction goes well.

The arrival of the Apollo Go taxis to Beijing follows after Baidu began testing in two smaller Chinese cities last month. A year ago, Baidu started the first tests with self-driving cars, then on test roads with a total length of 50 kilometers; the company was given permission to use the robot taxis commercially after successfully driving more than half a million kilometers.