Baidu has unveiled the Robocar, a driverless vehicle that surpasses American models in showmanship.
The technological battle between the United States and China occurs in different areas. It’s not just a trade war with vetoes and tariffs, too struggle to convince the rest of the planet which country leads in innovation and offers greater possibilities. So far, autonomous vehicles have come primarily from the United States, but Baidu has something to say.
Baidu is one of China’s big tech companies, a giant conglomerate that is sometimes labeled the Google of China because of its search engine. Among the many areas in which he works is also that of smart cars and Robocar is the latest project they have shown.
CNBC has shared the words of Baidu CEO Robin Li and his presentation in which he tried to convince investors and journalists of the great strides they are making in autonomous driving.
The presentation was chaired by the Kunlun 2 processor focused on second generation artificial intelligence that multiplies the power and can be especially useful for autonomous driving.
The Robocar that takes advantage of Baidu’s advancements is a two-seater autonomous vehicle, without a driver, which is not known when it will begin to be mass produced, but which is already specially developed.
Among the highlights according to the images seen are the doors that open upwards and the large infotainment screen to distract passengers while the vehicle is moving alone. This is a big, heavy car that they will be trying to turn into a “Robotaxi” in a couple of years.
The focus is global and Baidu also wants it to be requested through an application that they have developed, Apollo Go. The built-in tablet is also its own and the voice assistant is Xiaodu, owned by Baidu.
Anyway, this is a project in which they will need the support of car manufacturers to be an excessive investment to build an assembly line at the moment. In this regard, they have been associated with BAIC Group.
At the moment they have not communicated very specific data in reference to the vehicle, but it is very likely that we will have more information soon: It seems like a project that can make Baidu’s progress known in other countries.