GM to Develop Self Driving Car
With no one at the wheel, a self-driving taxi developed by tech giant Baidu Inc. rolls down a Beijing street when its sensors detect the corner of a delivery cart jutting into its lane.
The taxi stops half a car away. “Sorry,” a recorded voice says to passengers. The steering wheel turns on its own while the taxi moves around the cart. A Baidu technician watches from the front passenger seat.
Baidu is China’s highest-profile competitor in a multi-billion-dollar race with rival Self Driving Car developers, including Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and General Motors Co.’s Cruise, to turn their futuristic technology into a consumer product.
Baidu and a rival, Pony.ai, received the first licenses from China in April to operate taxis with no one in the driver’s seat but a security supervisor on board. That came 18 months after Waymo began self-driving ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Arizona, in October 2020.