BEIJING: A string of self-driving robotaxis owned by Chinese internet giant Baidu stalled in central China, stranding passengers after an apparent “system malfunction”, police said on Wednesday (Apr 1).
Local authorities in Wuhan, Hubei province, began receiving calls “one after another” on Tuesday night about “multiple Apollo Go cars stopped in the middle of the road, unable to move”, police said in a statement.
Apollo Go is Baidu’s driverless taxi service which began charging for rides in Beijing in 2021 and operates in designated areas across several cities.
“After investigation, preliminary findings suggest the cause was system malfunction,” police added, without specifying how many cars were impacted.
Social media users shared videos of themselves attempting to contact customer service from inside their stalled robotaxis as other vehicles passed by.
“Apollo Go, are you paralysed?” one person wrote on social media, alongside a video of unanswered calls to the company dialled from an in-car tablet.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-robotaxis-baidu-apollo-go-outage-stranding-passengers-6030391
