By Michael Elkins
Apollo, Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) smart car business, announced Wednesday that the Chinese tech giant has received approval to be among the first companies to test fully autonomous vehicles in Shanghai.
Apollo currently operates driverless robotaxi services in specially designated areas of Wuhan, Chongqing and Beijing.
Apollo plans to put an additional 200 fully driverless robotaxis into operation across China in 2023 which would then result in it operating the largest robotaxi fleet in the world.
The company has been investing in smart car technology since 2017 and has made significant progress in developing self-driving cars that can navigate complex urban environments. Baidu has accumulated more than 40 million kilometers of L4 autonomous driving test mileage and 3,477 autonomous driving patent families, holding the world record for number of autonomous driving patents for four consecutive years.
Shares of BIDU are down 1.88% in afternoon trading on Wednesday.