China’s search giant, Baidu Inc is putting plans afoot to actualize the design and production of its own electric vehicles. In actualizing the plans, the company has had discussions with some automakers. This latest move pits Baidu in line as the race among tech firms to develop smart cars gathers momentum.

The search-engine giant is also into the design and development of autonomous vehicles and internet connectivity infrastructure and will consider contracting the manufacturing, to an automaker or in the alternative, create a majority-owned company with automakers.

Baidu thus joins its peers like Tencent Holdings, Amazon, and Alphabet, which have done a lot in research and development in automobile technology or invested in smart-car auto firms.

Baidu has held preliminary talks, although no definitive decisions were reached, with some Chinese automakers on possible business collaboration, insiders have said. The insiders spoke under the cover of anonymity since they were not authorized by Baidu to speak on the issue.

Baidu on their part declined to comment on the matter. The automaker, GAC, mentioned among those that have had discussions with Baidu, stated that it has a strategic partnership with the search giant and that any further cooperation was subject to discussion. Geely said it was not aware of such talks while FAW failed to respond to inquiries.

Baidu established its autonomous driving division Apollo in 2017 and it supplies AI-generated technology and other ancillary jobs to automakers such as Geely, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Ford.

Baidu also operates autonomous taxi service Go Robotaxi with safety drivers on board in Beijing and a growing number of Chinese cities, with plans to scale up expansion in the next three years. It recently got clearance to test five cars in Beijing unmanned.

Building cars would represent a dramatic shift in the company’s plans to diversify and shore up income forecasts outside its core business model as a search engine, where revenues fell short of projections in 2019. 

UP NEXT: Exclusive: Xiaomi Mi 11 scheduled for December 29 launch

(source)

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Only about six months back, Amazon announced the acquisition of self-driving startup Zoox, and today the company pulled the wraps off its first autonomous vehicle. Instead of following the pathway, several other tech firms such as AutoX have followed which is automating a standard car built with a human driver in mind, the Zoox robotaxi is built specifically for autonomous driving in dense urban environments.

The robotaxi is just 3.63 meters long which is quite compact. That is mostly because there is no luggage compartment or a front hood housing a sophisticated mechanical engine. Instead, Zoox robotaxi has a cabin-like design where four passengers sit facing each other in pairs.

The Zoox Fully Autonomous, All-electric Robotaxi adopts four-wheel steerings and bi-directional driving in that there is no front or rear side. The vehicle also doesn’t have a steering wheel.

Despite its compact size, Zoox’s robotaxi can reach speeds up to 75 MPH. It’s powered by two individual battery packs that provide about 16 hours of run time before they need to recharge, so a single robotaxi should be able to do a day’s worth of work before it needs a power-up.

The carriage also has some unique safety features to go along with its unconventional design, including an airbag system specially built for its bi-directional design. Zoox says that all four seats get the equivalent of five-star crash safety protection. Meanwhile, the camera, LIDAR, and radar system provide a 270-degree field of view from all four corners of the robotaxi, which basically eliminates blind spots.

The tech start-up disclosed that the robotaxis are already being tested in Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Foster City, CA. We can’t say for now if riders can hail a ride on the robotaxi.

UP NEXT: Exclusive: Xiaomi Mi 11 scheduled for December 29 launch

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