Roehl Niño Bautista · · 1 min readBaidu, Pony.ai get China’s first robotaxi licenses
Search engine giant Baidu and autonomous driving firm Pony.ai got the green light from regulators for their driverless taxi operations, allowing them to charge a yet-to-be-determined rate, reported Bloomberg.
As the first license recipients for self-driving taxis, the two tech firms’ respective robotaxi fleets will operate within the Beijing High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Area. Baidu will have 600 pickup and drop-off points between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., while Pony.ai will run 200 points of their own from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Baidu’s third quarter earnings report said that its 13% growth was buoyed by its AI cloud business, which saw a 73% year-on-year increase.
Toyota-backed Pony.ai, on the other hand, recently shelved its US listing plans through a blank-check firm, following fears of backlash from the Chinese government.
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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