Baidu's Apollo autonomous vehicles granted licence to test in Hong Kong

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Baidu (NASDAQ:) has received the licence to trial autonomous vehicles with its Apollo robotaxi work successful Hong Kong arsenic it expands its footprint extracurricular Chinese mainland.

Baidu Apollo International Ltd was approved to behaviour trials for 10 autonomous conveyance successful North Lantau, according to a connection released by Hong Kong's Transport Department connected Friday.

The licence volition beryllium valid from Dec. 9, 2024 to Dec. 8, 2029, with lone 1 self-driving car operating connected specified roadworthy sections astatine a clip successful its archetypal phase, according to the statement.

During the trial, a backup relation stationed connected committee shall instrumentality implicit power of the conveyance if necessary, it added.

The Hong Kong authorities has since astatine slightest 2017 actively promoted autonomous vehicles, but has lone precocious allowed wider trials of autonomous vehicles including connected nationalist roads pursuing the rollout of a caller regulatory authorities successful March this year.

This is the archetypal aviator licence fixed retired by the Hong Kong authorities since the instauration of the caller regulatory regime.

It besides marked Baidu's archetypal known licence for autonomous conveyance investigating extracurricular mainland China.

The company's robotaxi work Apollo Go is operating successful aggregate Chinese cities, with the largest fleet of much than 400 vehicles successful cardinal China's Wuhan city.

As contention to commercialize autonomous vehicles heats up, Baidu plans to motorboat its robotaxi work extracurricular mainland China, including Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported past month.