‘system Failure’ Paralyzes Baidu Robotaxis In China

In Brief

Robotaxis operated by Baidu’s Apollo Go stalled passim Wuhan, China, successful immoderate cases trapping passengers for up to 2 hours, according to aggregate media reports arsenic good arsenic galore video and societal media posts.

Baidu has not shared what caused nan wide outage. However, section constabulary said it was a “system failure” that affected astatine slightest 100 robotaxis, Reuters reported. The chartless method correction caused robotaxis to abruptly frost — and sometimes successful vulnerable spots specified arsenic nan accelerated lane of roadways, according to Wired. Police are still investigating nan matter.

Baidu did not respond to TechCrunch’s emailed petition for comment.

Baidu is 1 of nan largest robotaxi operators successful China and has expanded to nan Middle East. Last year, nan institution said it planned to deploy a fleet of much than 1,000 autonomous vehicles in Dubai over nan adjacent fewer years.

The caller Baidu outage is nan latest incident to raise questions astir nan information of robotaxis and their effect connected section communities. And it’s not conscionable isolated to China. A widespread powerfulness outage successful California past December wiped retired postulation lights, causing Waymo vehicles to go stuck.

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