Baidu Reveals New All-Electric Self-Driving Car in China

Self-driving vehicles have a tendency to become more adorable as huge technology companies iterate their design, and Baidu‘s brand-new customized Chery eQ all-electric test automobile is no exception. It looks like Google’s updated self-driving vehicle, the panda-like EV, however it’s got more cabin space and still utilizes an existing automobile platform for the standard car body and drivetrain, fitted with a sensor range up top for autonomous features.

Baidu had been utilizing a fleet of customized 3-series automobiles from BMW, with tests expanding to the United States previously this year. The company also just recently co-invested in LiDAR-maker Velodyne with Ford, with the two firms putting a combined $150 million into assisting the California provider make its sensing unit components more affordable for mass market manufacturing.

The brand-new driverless vehicles from Baidu are designed for usage in China, where it prepares to launch them across the country with the goal of strategically constructing out their mapping tech, consisting of collecting data about regional traffic facilities.

Long-lasting, Baidu is looking to put together a self-driving fleet of vehicles to buy utilized as a shared public transport alternative, which it aims to really field for public use by 2018, in limited area on a basic loop in China.