The Chinese technology giant Baidu has just presented the sixth generation of its Apollo RT6 robotaxi, a vehicle with level 4 autonomous driving. It is a vehicle manufactured completely from scratch and has a removable steering wheel.
The Baidu World 2022 technology conference has served for the Chinese technology company to present its latest creation in the automotive world: the Baidu Apollo RT6 with level 4 autonomous driving.
This robotaxi, developed by the creator of China’s most popular internet search engine in collaboration with Geely, will join the Apollo Go fleet in 2023 and will cost approximately €37,000a very competitive figure in the field of electric vehicles and even more so considering the level of autonomous driving it has.
In recent years, Baidu has focused on electric cars and autonomous driving technologiesmanaging to partner with several car manufacturers (Toyota, Ford and Volkswagen, among others) through its Apollo ecosystem.
Until now, Apollo Go offered trips with vehicles adapted to the Apollo system, but the RT6 represents a novelty and a total integration in the system, since it has been created from scratch with that objective.
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This is the Baidu Apollo RT6
Some of the most outstanding specifications of this new autonomous robot taxi they are the consequence of a design fully focused on fully autonomous driving.
This includes a vdetachable ruffle allowing more room for passengers. In addition, it makes it possible to install additional seats, vending machines, desks or game consoles.
The Apollo RT6 features L4 autonomous driving capability, 1,200 TOPS of computing power, and sensor architecture to handle complex urban environments, as well as 38 sensors: 8 LiDAR, 6 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars and 12 cameras.
This is the Baidu Apollo RT6
These sensors are perfectly integrated into the panoramic glass roof. It also has the electric car industry’s first full seven-layer redundancyas well as interactive lights that indicate key signals to communicate with passengers and other cars on the road.
Baidu’s plan is to implement a large fleet of these vehicles on the Apollo Go network in 2023, gradually increasing the number of units from 10,000 to 100,000. This network has completed, since its launch in 2020, more than a million trips in 10 Chinese cities and wants to reach a hundred by 2030.
Photos: Baidu