Baidu Apollo accumulates 1.12 million kilometers of testing in Beijing

Chinese tech giant Baidu's autonomous driving unit Apollo has reached 1.12 million kilometers of road testing in Beijing by 2020, according to the 2020 Beijing Autonomous Vehicles Road Test Report released by the Beijing Municipal Government.

In 2020, Baidu operated a fleet of 55 autonomous vehicles on the roads of Beijing, accounting for 75% of the overall number of vehicles that conducted automated driving tests in the city.

For the third year in a row, Baidu Apollo is the company with the largest fleet of test vehicles and the longest test mileage among the test companies in Beijing, according to the report.

In October 2020, Baidu Apollo launched the Apollo Go Robotaxi service in Yizhuang, Haidian, and Shunyi in Beijing.

By the end of 2020, a total of 15,006 users had hailed an Apollo Go Robotaxi through the mobile devices, and more than 90% of users said they were willing to continue using the service in the future.

Baidu Apollo's testing also set a precedent for fully driverless road tests on public roads in Beijing.

Baidu also conducted fully driverless vehicle testing of 64827 kilometers with the Beijing Innovation Center for Mobility Intelligent to confirm the feasibility of the driverless technology and to optimize test parameters and technological specifications.

Beijing has opened a total of 200 autonomous vehicle testing roads that cover 699.58 km in four districts, and opened 2 autonomous vehicle testing areas in Yizhuang and Haidian with an area of about 140 square kilometers, becoming a leading city in China in terms of autonomous vehicle testing road coverage.

Beijing has issued general road testing permits to a total of 87 vehicles for 14 autonomous driving companies.

Since 2018, the cumulative safe driving mileage of autonomous vehicle road testing in Beijing has exceeded 2,123,400 km, with an average monthly testing mileage of 98,000 km.