China's Baidu Aims to Offer Robotaxi Service Overseas --- Search-engine giant has been operating driverless taxis in some Chinese cities

SINGAPORE -- Chinese internet company Baidu is seeking to roll out its driverless ride-hailing service overseas in an effort to extend its competitive advantage outside China.

The Beijing-based company hopes to test and deploy its Apollo Go robotaxis in places including Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East, people familiar with the matter said. It has been discussing the plans with companies and regulators in those regions, they said.

An Apollo Go representative said Apollo Go intended to release a new version of its autonomous-driving platform, called Apollo 10.0, that is "designed for a global audience."

Chinese and U.S. companies are looking to put autonomous-driving technologies into wider commercial use, both in driverless taxi services and in driver-assistance software for consumer cars.

Geopolitical tensions have arisen in the area. The U.S. Commerce Department in September proposed banning Chinese software and hardware in connected vehicles on American roads due to national-security concerns. China also has tightened scrutiny of data collected by cars running on the road.

Tesla is set to unveil its robotaxi this week after repeated delays.

 Separately, in China, the U.S. electric-car maker has said it expects to win local government approval to introduce its higher-level driver-assistance software in the first quarter of next year.

Baidu and other Chinese companies have been operating robotaxi services in multiple cities in China. Baidu's Apollo Go said in August that it operated more than 400 driverless taxis in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which was its biggest fleet in the country. In the April-June quarter, the company provided nearly 900,000 rides in China.

Another Chinese company, Pony.ai, which is backed by Toyota and Saudi Arabia's NEOM Investment Fund, has explored deploying its autonomous-driving technology in South Korea, Europe and the Middle East. Pony.ai has inked a partnership with a Singaporean taxi operator to run robotaxis.

China's WeRide, which counts Nissan as an investor, said it has obtained test permits for autonomous-driving vehicles in four countries, including the U.S. It has teamed up with Uber to operate robotaxis in the United Arab Emirates and has run autonomous shuttle buses on Singapore's Sentosa Island.

WeRide had been planning an initial public offering on Nasdaq in the U.S. but delayed the IPO in August ahead of the Commerce Department's proposed restrictions. "The primary motivation for expanding overseas is the intense and unhealthy competition in the domestic market," said CCB International analyst Qu Ke.

In recent months, Chinese robotaxi operators have offered discounts to attract passengers at home, pushing ride fares lower than traditional taxi services and sparking driver protests.

Baidu, China's biggest search-engine operator, has been seeking new growth engines in fields such as self-driving technology, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, as its core advertising business has slowed in recent years. Its revenue comes mostly from China. Industry executives say the most advanced version of Tesla's driving-assistance technology stands ahead of Chinese rivals, but while Tesla waits to get regulatory approval in China, many local competitors have started providing similar features and at a lower cost.

In the U.S., Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, offers its autonomous ride-hailing service in several cities including San Francisco and Los Angeles. General Motors-backed Cruise, which halted operations after an accident in San Francisco last year, is seeking to return to U.S. roads. Both are working with Uber to reach more consumers." [1]

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1. China's Baidu Aims to Offer Robotaxi Service Overseas --- Search-engine giant has been operating driverless taxis in some Chinese cities. Huang, Raffaele; Qu, Tracy.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 10 Oct 2024: B.4.