According to CNBC, China's state-owned automaker BAIC Group and Internet giant Baidu have teamed up to build 1,000 driverless cars within the next three years. Besides, the companies reportedly plan to commercialize a robotaxi service across the country.
Preliminary statistics indicate that each vehicle can be manufactured at $74,729, which is over 50% less than the regular cost of an unmanned car. The innovative Apollo Moon vehicles will be based on BAIC’s electric ones. Baidu will provide the autonomous driving systems and software. Analysts believe that this step could help the concern diversify the revenue. Notably, its income is dependent on advertising as Baidu's core activity is the search engine development. In case the company is able to successfully commercialize the robotaxi project, it will have another revenue stream.
Baidu's management has already started to test autonomous driving on public roads in a number of major cities across China, including Shanghai and Beijing. Partnership with BAIC will allow the company to take robotaxis beyond just the testing phase and move on to a mass-market rollout. In this case, Baidu will be able to compete with China’s ride-hailing giant Didi that is also developing its own self-driving technologies and making moves to go public.
