China’s Baidu to test robotaxis in Switzerland in race for Europe

BEIJING — Chinese language tech large Baidu introduced Wednesday that its robotaxi unit will begin check drives in Switzerland in December, as corporations race to get their autos on European roads.

The corporate’s Apollo Go unit will work with Swiss public transit operator PostBus by means of a strategic partnership, Baidu stated.

By the primary quarter of 2027, the businesses intention to start working a public-facing totally driverless taxi service referred to as “AmiGo” that makes use of Apollo Go’s RT6 electrical autos, the press launch stated. Baidu added that when the robotaxis are up and operating, the operators plan to take away the vehicles’ steering wheels.

Plans to begin exams in December are essentially the most concrete steps Baidu has introduced up to now in getting its robotaxis on public roads in Europe.

The Chinese language tech firm stated in August that it could accomplice with U.S. ride-hailing firm Lyft to deploy robotaxis in the U.K. and Germany beginning in 2026. A month earlier, Baidu introduced a partnership with Uber to deploy Apollo Go robotaxis on the ride-hailing platform outdoors the U.S. and mainland China later within the yr.

Different robotaxi corporations are additionally racing to increase into Europe and the Middle East, after build up operations within the U.S. and China.

On Friday, Chinese language robotaxi operator Pony.ai introduced it should work with Stellantis to begin tests in Luxembourg within the coming months, earlier than increasing to different European cities subsequent yr.

U.S. rival Waymo, owned by Google mum or dad Alphabet, final week additionally introduced plans to start tests in London earlier than launching the self-driving taxi service there subsequent yr. Uber in June stated it could begin trials in spring 2026 of totally autonomous rides within the U.Okay. with SoftBank-backed self-driving tech startup Wayve.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.