China’s search engine major, Baidu Inc. on Thursday tested its two self-driving cars on an unused expressway in north China’s Tianjin City.
As informed by the company, this was the very first time for Baidu’s automated cars to be tested on the Tangshan-Langfang expressway which is scheduled to open later this year. The trial run conducted will enable developers to collect data on the car’s performance in sensing the environment and self-control and positioning, a senior engineer with within the road test team said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese giants have been quietly testing vehicles in China and trying to take over Silicon Valley tech giants. The companies battling a head-on competition with each other include Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, all of which are investing heavily in the technology.
Earlier in May 2018 Didi Chuxing, Chinese largest cab riding company also received the go-ahead to test autonomous driving cars in California.
Baidu had obtained its own permit to test driverless cars in California in 2016. It also established a research centre in San Francisco to boost its artificial intelligence efforts.
Baidu is also emerging along as a strong player in self-driving technology. Recently, the company launched a big upgrade to its open-source platform “Apollo 2.0” at the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2018 in Las Vegas, to speed up its development of autonomous vehicles.