Baidu Claims One Step Forward In Making Autonomous Cars Than Tesla

Baidu electric car, claimed to be better than Tesla. (photo: financial times)

JAKARTA - Baidu's electric vehicle (EV) company, Jidu Auto, will be one generation ahead of Tesla in terms of autonomous driving technology. This claim came from the Chinese company's chief executive, Robin Li in a statement on Monday, August 8.

"Our understanding of smart vehicles is that being electric is semi-final while being smart is final," Li added, as quoted by Reuters.

"Jidu targets to be able to deliver 800,000 "robot" cars by 2028," Jidu's chief executive, Joe Xia Yiping, said in a statement.

Ready for a robotaxi trip without human drivers in the car? As of today, Baidu has become the first and only company to offer commercial fully #driverless ride-hailing services to the public in China. Watch the video to find out what it’s like to ride in an #ApolloGo #robotaxi! pic.twitter.com/L6ZUhiZMUT

— Baidu Inc. (@Baidu_Inc) August 8, 2022

"Jidu also plans to ship its second model for mass production in 2024," Xia added.

Jidu revealed its first "robot" concept car, which has no doorknobs and can be fully controlled via voice recognition, in June. They also plan to mass-produce the model in 2023.

In addition to equipping the car with autonomous driving software technology powered by Baidu, Jidu's "robot" vehicle will have two lidars and 12 cameras. Lidar is a detection system, similar to radar, that uses pulsed laser light rather than radio waves.

While autonomous cars from Tesla do not use lidar sensors like this.

Baidu's EV plans come as tech companies around the world race to develop smart cars after Tesla's success in commercializing EVs.

Smartphone makers Xiaomi Corp and Didi Global are among other Chinese tech giants pursuing this smart car ambition.