Baidu halves production cost for latest self-driving vehicle

Chinese search engine giant Baidu on Thursday released its new generation of autonomous vehicles with a production cost roughly half that of its previous Apollo Moon line.

The company is hopeful that the per unit cost of 250,000 yuan ($36,900) will allow it to roll out large numbers of the Apollo RT 6 to provide affordable taxi rides.

"This massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles across China," Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li said. "We are moving

Small batches of the new vehicle will be put into trial operation on Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing platform Apollo Go in the second half of next year. Capacity will gradually climb from 10,000 to 100,000 units per year, the company said, and the vehicle will operate in 100 cities across the country by 2030.

In a first for Baidu, the Apollo RT 6 is equipped with a detachable steering wheel. Currently, Chinese regulations prevent cars without a steering wheel from operating on public roads, but Baidu said that if these regulations one day change, the detachable steering wheel could be replaced by extra seating or game consoles.

The vehicle is equipped with 38 sensors, including eight light-detection and ranging sensors and 12 cameras to provide highly accurate, long-range detection on all sides.

Beijing in late April granted Baidu the country's first license to operate fully autonomous taxi services.

Biadu said its robotaxis have expanded to 10 cities in China since 2020, including all first-tier cities; they have provided more than 1 million rides so far.