Baidu, China’s equal of Google or Alphabet, has unveiled its next-generation totally autonomous car, the Apollo RT6, an all-electric, production-ready mannequin with a removable steering wheel.
Designed for advanced city environments, Apollo RT6 can be put into operation in China in 2023 on Apollo Go, Baidu’s autonomous ride-hailing service.
With a per unit price of RMB 250,000 (roughly $37,000), the arrival of Apollo RT6 is about to speed up autonomous car deployment at scale, bringing the world nearer to a way forward for driverless shared mobility.
Talking at Baidu World 2022, the corporate’s flagship expertise convention, Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Baidu, stated: “This large price discount will allow us to deploy tens of 1000’s of autonomous autos throughout China. We’re transferring in the direction of a future the place taking a robotaxi can be half the price of taking a taxi right this moment.”
As Baidu’s sixth era autonomous car, Apollo RT6 is distinct from earlier generations that had been in any other case retrofitted on standard autos. The steering wheel-free design unleashes more room to craft distinctive interiors, permitting for the set up of additional seating, merchandising machines, desktops, or gaming consoles.
At 4760 mm lengthy with a wheelbase of 2830 mm, the rider-first Apollo RT6 delivers consolation with unbiased rear seating, ample rear legroom of 1050 mm, a purely flat ground and an clever interplay system.
The Apollo RT6 exterior encompasses a revolutionary look that seamlessly integrates sensors on the sunroof alongside interactive lights and clever electrical sliding doorways to additional improve the driving expertise.
Apollo RT6 integrates Baidu’s most superior L4 autonomous driving system, powered by automotive-grade twin computing models with a computing energy of as much as 1200 TOPS. The car makes use of 38 sensors, together with 8 LiDARs and 12 cameras, to acquire extremely correct, long-range detection on all sides.
The security and reliability of Apollo RT6 are backed by a large trove of real-world information, a complete check mileage of over 32 million kilometers (roughly 20 million miles) pushed by Baidu’s autonomous car up to now.
Talking at Baidu World 2022, Zhenyu Li, senior company vp of Baidu and normal supervisor of Clever Driving Group, stated the autonomous driving functionality of Apollo RT6 is equal to a talented driver with 20 years of expertise.
Apollo RT6 is the primary car mannequin constructed on Xinghe, Baidu’s self-developed automotive E/E structure specifically for totally autonomous driving. The car is 100% automotive-grade and has full redundancy all through each {hardware} and autonomous driving software program.
The creation of Apollo RT6 marks one other milestone for Baidu to attain its aim of offering safer, greener and extra environment friendly mobility options. Because the world’s largest robotaxi service supplier, Apollo Go has expanded to 10 cities in China since its launch in 2020, together with all first-tier cities, and supplied greater than 1 million orders.
