Baidu, China’s equivalent of Google and a developer of autonomous vehicles, has received qualifications for 35 of its “Apollo” vehicles to demonstrate commercialized autonomous driving operations, and qualifications for 10 vehicles to conduct driverless testing, by traffic authorities in Cangzhou city, in China.
These qualifications will allow Baidu to be the first company in China to experiment with various monetization mechanisms for autonomous driving services, marking a landmark step on Baidu Apollo’s road to commercialization.
With these qualifications, Baidu Apollo will be able to roll out commercialized demonstrations of its smart transportation services in Cangzhou, and explore various mechanisms for charging customers, such as discounts, trial tickets, and voluntary payments from riders, for the first time by any autonomous driving company in China. [Read more…] about Baidu receives green light to demonstrate commercialized autonomous vehicles in China
