CNBC: "China Far Ahead of the U.S. in Robo-Taxis"
Baidu Operates Over 1,000 'Apollo Go' Robo-Taxis
Surpasses Break-Even Point... In Stark Contrast to U.S. Pilot Operations
There have been reports that China is significantly ahead of the United States in the global robotaxi (fully autonomous taxi) sector. On the 23rd (local time), CNBC, an American business media outlet, reported, "The leader in the robotaxi industry is not Tesla, but Baidu."
An image of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicle during a road test held last June in central Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Photo by Yonhap News
Previously, Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, announced during last week's earnings release that "robotaxis have reached the break-even point" and declared that "the robotaxi industry has reached an inflection point." Baidu currently operates more than 1,000 robotaxis under the name "Apollo Go" in 11 cities across China. The company is also attempting to expand overseas, including to the Middle East, such as Dubai.
According to CNBC, other Chinese autonomous driving companies, including Pony.ai and WeRide, are also working to enter overseas markets by partnering with ride-sharing companies such as Uber.
In contrast, Waymo, a subsidiary of Google and the leading autonomous driving company in the United States, is currently operating more than 2,500 robotaxis on a trial basis across the United States. However, these vehicles have not yet begun paid operations and are scheduled to do so starting next year. This stands in stark contrast to Baidu in China, which has already launched paid operations and surpassed the break-even point.
Last June, Tesla Robo-taxi was seen driving on the roads in Austin, Texas, USA. Photo by Reuters Yonhap News
In June, Tesla launched a limited autonomous robotaxi service using Model Y vehicles in Austin, Texas, and later expanded it to San Francisco. However, for now, the vehicles are operated with a safety operator on board rather than being fully unmanned.
According to investment bank Goldman Sachs, the robotaxi market is expected to reach a size of over 25 billion dollars (approximately 36.7675 trillion won) by 2030. In South Korea, President Lee Jaemyung suggested in a meeting with academia, industry, and research representatives related to autonomous driving last September, "Let's designate an entire mid-sized city in a local area as an autonomous driving regulatory sandbox." However, according to the 2026 budget plan, while the budget for autonomous vehicle commercialization projects will be increased to 827.3 billion won, the plan to designate a city as a pilot zone was not included.
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