BEIJING, April 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU) topped industry peers with the most test license plates (45), the most test vehicles on the road (45), the longest distance driven (86,922.3 miles) and the most diverse test scenarios, according to the inaugural Beijing Autonomous Vehicles Road Test Report 2018 recently issued by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport.
As the first of its kind in China, the report releases the information and data derived from the road testing of autonomous vehicles in both enclosed areas and open roads in Beijing during 2018 by eight companies including Baidu, NIO, BAIC BJEV, Daimler, Pony.ai, Tencent, Audi, and Didi Chuxing.
License/Vehicles: In total, 56 test license plates were granted by the Beijing municipal government to the eight companies by the end of 2018 and Baidu won 45.
Road test distance: The total test distance recorded by vehicles of all eight companies was 95,420.9 miles in 2018 with Baidu alone reaching 86,922.3 miles – 91% of the total distance. After obtaining the first autonomous vehicle testing permit in Beijing in March 2018, Baidu has been gradually expanding its testing fleets and mileage.
About Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Development
Baidu began autonomous driving research and development in early 2013. In July 2017, the company open sourced its technology with the launch of Apollo, a software platform that enables developers and partners to quickly build their own autonomous driving systems. Since then, the platform has been significantly upgraded and grown into one of the largest autonomous driving ecosystems in the world, bringing together 137 partners and 12,000 developers.
The newest and most powerful release, Apollo 3.5, is the first open source autonomous driving platform that supports complex urban and suburban driving scenarios. Recently, Baidu also launched Apollo Enterprise, a suite of intelligent driving products and solutions for mass production vehicles, that is scalable, safe, and highly customizable based on enterprise customer needs.
In addition to testing in Beijing, Baidu also tests its autonomous technologies in other locations in China as well as in the U.S.
- In 2019, a robo-taxis service will operate on 130 miles of city roads equipped with Baidu's V2X (vehicle to everything) technology in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province in the south-central part of China.
- Also this year, udelv, a California-based delivery company whose autonomous vehicles run on main modules of the Baidu Apollo 3.5 software platform, will deploy its delivery vans in several U.S. locations, including the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Baidu received its initial permit to test its self-driving cars in California from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles in 2016 and has been road testing its fleet ever since.
The original announcement by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport can be accessed here (Chinese). The BICMI Chinese report can be found here (Chinese).
About Baidu
Baidu, Inc. is the leading Chinese language Internet search provider. Baidu aims to make a complex world simpler for users and enterprises through technology. Baidu’s ADSs trade on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “BIDU.” Currently, ten ADSs represent one Class A ordinary share.
Media Contact
Intlcomm@baidu.com