Chinese tech company Baidu said Monday it has become the first operator in China to get permits for selling rides with no human driver or staff in the vehicles.
Some instances, the cost of human personnel can be eliminated thanks to the local government approvals.
The initial scale of the permits is small and divided between two Chinese cities.
In April, the Beijing suburb district gave the go-ahead for Baidu and Pony.ai to operate robotaxis. The Chinese capital still requires staff to sit in therobotaxi with passengers.
In the last year, there has been an increase in the number of permits issued by the municipal authorities.
In the U.S., there are two companies that can run public robotaxis with no human staff. There are differing laws for testing robotaxis and charging riders in different states.
There have been more than one million orders for the service. The company said it operated 196,000 rides in the first quarter. The results of the second quarter will be released in August.
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