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Baidu, Inc., a Chinese tech firm specializing in Internet-related services and products, and artificial intelligence, has unveiled its fully autonomous vehicle called Apollo RT6. The next-generation AV is an all-electric vehicle that can be operated without a steering wheel.
Baidu announced late last week that its autonomous vehicle has a removable steering wheel and is ready for production. The company said that it has plans of deploying the new Apollo RT6 units on the roads as robotaxis for the transport service that it will offer in China next year.
According to Reuters, the price of Baidu’s AV is ¥250,000 or about $37,031.55, and the company said this is much cheaper compared to the previous generation of the same vehicle, which cost ¥480,000.
The new next-generation AV features autonomous Level 4 capabilities that do not require human intervention. It is fitted with 8 lidars and 12 cameras which are used as detection systems. The lidar is said to work just like radars which utilize pulsed laser light instead of radio waves.
Baidu designed the Apollo RT6 autonomous vehicle, but it did not disclose which company would make its new model. In April, Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, mentioned during an investors’ conference that it will be starting the mass production of its robotaxi without pedals or steering wheel in 2024.
“This massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of AVs across China," Baidu's chief executive Robin Li said at the Baidu World conference. "We are moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today.”
"This massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of AVs across China,” Baidu’s chief executive officer and co-founder, Robin Li, said in a statement during the company’s flagship tech conference called the Baidu World 2022. “We are moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today."
Finally, CNBC reported that Baidu’s Apollo RT6 has been scheduled to run on the roads around Beijing in the second half of 2023. The autonomous vehicle units will be operated under Baidu’s self-driving robotaxi business.
