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Baidu and Pony.ai have been given permission to function their autonomous autos with out security drivers in Beijing, a primary for robotaxi providers in China (through CNBC). Though each firms now not want a employees member within the driver’s seat, they’ll nonetheless want a supervisor current someplace within the car.
Baidu and Pony.ai can’t function all through the complete metropolis of Beijing simply but — they’re restricted to a 60 sq. kilometer (23.1 sq. mile) space in Yizhuang, Beijing, the house of about 300,000 residents. Whereas Baidu can deploy simply 10 autonomous autos within the space, CNBC says Pony.ai can solely function 4. Each firms have plans to broaden the variety of autos on the highway (with Baidu taking pictures for 30), however it’s unclear how quickly that may occur.
Beijing authorities began permitting Baidu and Pony.ai to cost for his or her robotaxi providers within the Yizhuang space of Beijing final November, though the town initially required each providers to have a security driver behind the wheel. In keeping with TechCrunch, riders can hail both robotaxi service via Baidu’s Apollo Go app from 10AM to 4PM, or with Pony.ai’s PonyPilot Plus app from 9AM to 5PM.
Final week, the Toyota-backed Pony.ai turned the primary autonomous automotive firm to win a taxi license in China. It acquired permission to function 100 autos in Nansha, Guangzhou, and says a security driver will probably be on board for a brief time frame. Pony.ai has been authorized to check its autonomous autos with out security drivers in three California cities as properly, however this allow was suspended after one in every of its vehicles collided with a middle divider.
Baidu, the corporate behind the huge Chinese language search engine of the identical identify, was additionally granted approval to check its autos with out security drivers in Sunnyvale, California. It joins quite a lot of different autonomous car firms, like Waymo and Cruise, that may function totally driverless autos on the streets of California.
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