Google-owned Waymo had been increasing the footprint of its self-driving cars in the US and abroad, but Chinese companies aren’t far behind.
Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc has announced that its autonomous ride-hailing platform Apollo Go has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, to launch autonomous driving testing and services in the city. As part of the agreement, Apollo Go will deploy 100 fully autonomous vehicles in urban Dubai by the end of 2025, using its 6th-generation robotaxi, with plans to expand the fleet to no fewer than 1,000 by 2028. This is Apollo Go’s first international fleet deployment outside the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and its first entry into the Middle East, Baidu said.
Apollo Go also has also signed a strategic partnership with Autogo, a UAE-based autonomous mobility company, with the goal of deploying the largest fully driverless fleet in Abu Dhabi. Initial trials of dozens of Apollo Go autonomous vehicles will be deployed in selected areas of Abu Dhabi, with phased expansion planned ahead of full commercial operations by 2026.
Meanwhile, Waymo, Google’s self driving arm, currently operates in four American cities — San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin. In 2025, it will begin testing its vehicles in 10 new cities, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego, and then in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. Internationally, Waymo is set to begin testing its self-driving vehicles in Tokyo, Japan, in early 2025, marking its first expansion outside the United States.
But China appears to already have several self-driving startups, and they’re making plans to move abroad. Baidu Apollo operates in multiple cities including Wuhan, Beijing, and Hong Kong, and has 400 vehicles in Wuhan. Baidu’s Apollo Go service has completed over 150 million kilometers and provided over 10 million rides in China. Meanwhile Pony.ai is active in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and is looking to expand to South Korea and Luxembourg. It currently has about 200 vehicles. WeRide is active in Guangzhou with around 100 vehicles, and AutoX claims to have 1,000 vehicles in Shenzhen and Shanghai areas. It had been becoming apparent that China is catching up with the US in AI, but it appears that it’s just as close in self-driving as well.