Baidu’s new robotaxi can drive without a steering wheel and is 50% cheaper

Baidu unveiled on July 21, 2022, the sixth generation of its self-driving electric car built for ride-hailing rides — at a cost nearly 50% below that of a model announced last year.

The price of the vehicles has been slashed by nearly half.

The ApolloRT6 is an electric car that can be produced without a third-party manufacturer. The manufacturing cost for the Apollo Moon, made in partnership with BAIC Group, was more than half a million dollars.

In the second half of next year, the Apollo RT6 will be available for hire in China.

Beijing city gave the go-ahead for Apollo Go to charge fares for rides in a suburban district in November. A human staff member is sitting in the car.

Municipal authorities loosened restrictions on whether a staff member had to sit in the driver's seat in order to eliminate the cost of a taxi driver. It's not clear when the Chinese government will allow robotaxis to charge fares for rides.

We are moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today.

Over the course of a period of time, the company wants to produce 100,000 ApolloRT6 vehicles.

The cost reduction will allow us to deploy tens of thousands of vehicles across China. Taking arobotaxi will be half the cost of a taxi in a few years.

In China, Apollo Go operates in 10 cities, with plans to reach 65 cities by the year 2025.

Start-ups such as Pony.ai and WeRide are testing their businesses in China.

Elinor Leung, managing director of Asia telecom and internet research at CLSA, told CNBC earlier this week that companies need to get licenses in each city they want to operate in in order to expand in China.

She said that until cities recognize each other's testing records, the companies will need to raise more money.