Baidu's Self-Driving Car Hits Beijing Roads
Baidu's self-driving car has finally hit the roads of Beijing, China and finished an 18.6-mile drive through highways and side streets.
The "Chinese Google" announced that its own self-driving car has successfully finished its first route. As part of its complicated route, Baidu's autonomous car was able to do left, right, and u-turns, pass other cars, merge on and off the highway, and change lanes without any problem, according to Wired.
The road test comes after Baidu and BMW sealed a deal in June to launch an autonomous car in 2015. Widespread availability of the vehicle, however, still has a long way to go. The Chinese firm started cooking up the project two years ago. The vehicle that was tested on Beijing roads is a modified BMW 3-Series, 9 to 5 Google reports.
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While Google is aiming to launch a fully capable self-driving car, other companies want to slowly incorporate features into regular vehicles. Baidu, on the other hand, has opted to make adjustments to its autonomous car based on different environments, the report relays.
As of now, the Chinese tech giant is working on fully capable self-driving cars that will cover a limited route to limit the issues that the car has to deal with. One example of this is a bus that travels through a fixed route daily. By preloading information onto a vehicle, its sensors can focus more on pedestrians, surrounding cars, and other temporary obstacles, the report explains.
Baidu is taking its cue from Google and is making its own maps. The company aims to finish the mapping details of China's roadways in 5 to 10 years.
The recent road test signifies that Baidu has become a worthy competitor for Google for self-driving cars. The American tech giant's own autonomous cars have already covered more than 1.7 million miles, but Baidu's latest move is a big step that may change the way people perceive the Chinese firm.
