用车教车主别犯傻 若交警正准备对你停在路边
Using the Apollo vehicles that already offer autonomous rides across China
Rideshare challenger Lyft and China’s Baidu plan to bring robo-cabs to the UK and Europe next year.
The two companies announced their plan on Monday, promising that if they can secure regulatory approval they’ll start offering robo-rides in the UK and Germany next year, using the same Baidu Apollo cabs already operating in China which Uber plans to use in the Middle East.
Lyft and Baidu expect their fleet will scale “to thousands of vehicles across Europe in the following years.”
The rideshare company seems not to be entirely wedded to Baidu, as its announcement describes the Chinese company’s cars as “its pioneering autonomous solution in the region,” suggesting other robo-cars could follow.
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Lyft’s plan to launch in Europe isn’t fanciful because the UK has already passed a law that could see autonomous cars on its streets by 2026. Germany’s autonomous car plan calls for robo-cars to operate in the same year, and for public transport services to use autonomous cars in 2027. Germany hopes robot cars will operate on its famously fast motorways in 2028 and aspires to have autonomous vehicles “as a permanent part of a multimodal and interconnected mobility system” around 2030.
Lyft will use ride-share app FREENOW, which it recently acquired, to arrange rides in Baidu’s robo-cabs.
Uber has already announced plans to operate robo-cabs in Europe, with another Chinese company called Momenta.
It is unclear if Lyft and Baidu plan to operate on all roads, a challenge we mention as The Register previously reported how Asian ride-share giant Grab realized it needed to create its own maps because Google’s cartographers lacked the local knowledge to accurately chart the lanes and alleys present in Asian megacities.
Perhaps English country lanes, cobbled Paris streets, or the chaos of Neapolitan traffic will present similar challenges. ?
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