Aditya Hadi Pratama · · 1 min readBaidu unveils next-gen autonomous car for ride-hailing
Chinese search engine giant Baidu has unveiled a new autonomous car product called Apollo RT6, which it plans to roll out across its home country.
Apollo RT6 interior / Image credit: Baidu
In a statement, Baidu said that Apollo RT6 is an electric vehicle that is “production-ready.” It will be put into Apollo Go, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service in China, by next year.
The vehicle will have a detachable steering wheel feature, allowing the producer to provide unique interior designs and more room for extra seating, vending machines, desktops, or gaming consoles.
It also has a relatively low production cost per unit, standing at US$37,000. “The cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles across China. In the future, taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today,” said Robin Li, CEO of Baidu.
Apollo RT6 is the first vehicle model built on Xinghe, Baidu’s autonomous driving architecture. The car uses 38 sensors, including eight lidars and 12 cameras.
In November last year, Baidu got the green light from regulators to charge a fee for Apollo Go alongside Pony.ai, another autonomous driving firm. Since its launch in 2020, Apollo Go has processed more than one million orders in 10 cities.
See also: Baidu’s financial health in 5 charts
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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