The world’s first serial unmanned taxi was cheaper than $35,000, Baidu boasted

Tesla is currently only testing its self-driving taxi service on its own employees in the United States, hoping to offer it to the public in two regions of the country next year. The Chinese Internet giant Baidu this week decided to emphasize that it is capable of producing a serial RT6 electric car with the fourth level of autonomy, spending no more than $35,000 per car.

Image source: Baidu

Baidu demonstrated the concept of such an unmanned taxi a year and a half ago, but this week company co-founder Robin Li Yanhong said that the RT6 is now the only mass-produced vehicle in the world with SAE level 4 autonomy.

Let us recall that the corresponding scale implies only six levels of autonomy, starting from zero, and the fourth in this hierarchy is in penultimate place. It is believed that the on-board automation of such a car in most road situations allows it to move without human intervention. At the same time, the usual controls in the cabin must be provided; they disappear only at the fifth, highest level of autonomy.

Speaking at a trade fair in Wuhan, the founder of Baidu referred to the level of progress of the world’s main competitor: “Tesla presents a different technology roadmap… It wanted to move from level two to level four, but is still working on it.”

Residents of Wuhan are very familiar with the capabilities of Apollo Go robotic taxis, since a considerable number of unmanned prototypes are already working there. Their abundance and popularity even caused discontent among local taxi drivers, who began to lose their jobs. Back in 2022, Baidu management predicted that a trip in an unmanned taxi would be half the price of a traditional one. Tesla’s FSD complex so far only corresponds to the second level of autonomy, but it is already testing it on the streets of Shanghai, and expects to offer it to Chinese customers in the first quarter of 2025.