The Chinese company Baidu announced that it received the first permission to test unmanned taxis in Beijing on public roads. In the coming year, the company pledged to expand its fleet of unmanned vehicles across China by another 200, writes Reuters.

Image source: apollo.auto.

In China, Baidus is the principal source of revenue from the search engine, but in recent years the company has worked hard to implement autopilot technology in order to diversify its business. By the end of the third quarter, Baidu, which is operated under the Apollo Go brand, operate in Wuhan and Chongqing with no driver-made goods, made about 1.4 million trips. In the future, robots will also cross the streets of Beijing, but before this, they will test ten cars in a local technopark.

The US Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating a subsidiary of General Motors, Cruise after a series of incidents was launched in Phoenix and Austin. California banned Tesla from calling the autopilot Full-Self-Drive, so the consumer wouldn’t make it into trouble. And the startup Argo AI, once supported by Ford and Volkswagen, was forced to file for bankruptcy.

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