Chinese robotaxis just advanced the United States for the first time in the race for autonomous transport. Baidu announced that his service Apollo Go has completed 11 million tripsovercoming the 10 million reported by Waymo.
Why is it important. This advance marks a turning point in a technology that defines the future of urban transport. China has needed only two and a half years to overcome the company that launched the first completely autonomous service in the world in 2020, after a long stage of R&D as part of the “Other bets“From Google.
The contrast. General Motors announced that He left his Cruise project At the end of 2024 after spending 10,000 million dollars on it. Motion had to pause its operations for economic causes.
Meanwhile, Weride and Pony.aiboth Chinese, expand through Europe and the Middle East thanks to alliances with Uber.
In figures:
- A journey in Robotaxi costs 35 cents per mile in China.
- That same trip costs about 2 dollars in the United States.
China and its 1.4 billion inhabitants make up a market that quadruples to the American. That is a natural advantage of scale impossible to replicate.
The panoramic. China has built its advantage over three pillars:
- Favorable regulations in more than 50 cities.
- Competitive automotive supply chains worldwide.
- Enthusiast government support that considers the autonomous car as a key area of innovation.
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And now what. Tesla announced that I was going to launch his service in Austin this monthbut competition has been globalized. Baidu is already testing in Hong Kong and United Arab Emirates, with filtered plans to do the same in Switzerland and Türkiye.
Nevertheless, Chinese companies are still looking for financing: Not even its huge market by population serves to survive in a sector that has not yet achieved black numbers.
Deepen. McKinsey estimates that the robotaxis will not reach commercial scale until 2030, requiring billions of extra dollars to achieve a completely autonomous capacity.
Outstanding image | Apollo Go
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It was originally posted in
Xataka
by
Javier Lacort
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