Next time you are in China, and you’re worried your cab driver won’t understand what you are staying, get a driverless taxi instead. You’ll be able to do it now that the country has granted autonomous driving startup Pony.ai the first permit for robot taxis.
The service will start in Beijing, and you can get your driverless cab by ordering it on an app during daylight hours. Don’t be asking them to take you to Shanghai, though; it’s only able to operate within a 23 square mile radius in Beijing. Oh, there will be someone in the front seat, too, in case there is an emergency, and they need to grab the wheel. Or hit the brakes.
Baidu is like Google, known most for its search engine, but it also has the biggest fleet of autonomous cars.
Google’s parent company Alphabet has also started testing autonomous taxi services in the U.S. Waymo is a company owned by Alphabet, and they have been operating in Phoenix since 2020.
Despite the positive results from the test program, Way is finding out that getting this service all over the country is a challenge because adopting the technology needed for it is no easy task.
Waymo has raised $5.5 billion in funding and hopes to expand as soon as possible.
The post Ready To Roll. Driverless Taxis In China Hit The Road This Week. appeared first on VTPost.com.
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