Baidu plans mass production of self-driving mini-bus in 2018

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) giant Baidu has unveiled a plan to mass produce its self-driving mini-bus by July 2018, Economic View reported.

Baidu CEO Robin Li announced the news on Thursday at Baidu World 2017, a conference for AI developers.

Robin Li Yanhong, Chairman and CEO of Baidu Inc., speaks during the 2017 Baidu World Technology Conference in Beijing, China, 16 November 2017.[Photo: IC]

The company tested its self-driving vehicle on the fifth ring road of Beijing back in July, with Li sitting in the passenger seat.

The complete test was live streamed, and the company received a traffic ticket for it.

"I can tell you that we did receive a traffic ticket for the self-driving test. What I want to say is that there is already a traffic ticket for self-driving and will it be far for the mass production of self-driving vehicles?" said Li.

He added that the first batch of self-driving mini-buses will be a cooperation between Baidu and King Long, a well-known bus manufacturer in China. 

Baidu also plans to jointly produce self-driving vehicles with other Chinese automakers like JAC, BAIC, and Chery in the future.

A self-driving car developed by Baidu. [File photo: VCG]

Apollo, the open-source platform for autonomous driving solutions launched by Baidu in April, is currently being used by over 6,000 developers, according to Li.

The platform is powered by Baidu Brain, the company's core AI system, featuring advanced technology for recognizing and processing speech, images, words as well as building user profiles based on big data analysis.