Baidu to roll out 800,000 robot cars

Baidu's (9888) electric vehicle firm Jidu Auto aims to deliver 800,000 of its "robot" cars in 2028, Jidu chief executive Joe Xia Yiping said.

Jidu also plans to deliver its second model for mass production in 2024, Xia said.

Baidu has won approval to deploy the first fully autonomous self-driving taxis on China's roads, giving it an edge over rivals like Pony.ai and XPeng (9868).

The tech giant has secured permits to operate the robotaxis in Wuhan and Chongqing. The move marks a relaxation of Chinese rules, which previously mandated someone must be in the vehicle to take control in case of an emergency.

Baidu, which operated China's largest search engine, is transitioning to artificial intelligence and self-driving cars after its core advertising revenue shrank in the mobile era.

This came as Geely Automobile (0175) posted a 24 percent rise in car sales last month to 122,633 units from the same period last year.

Total sales for the first seven months of this year, however, only inched up by 1 percent to 736,475 units, according to a filing yesterday.

In July, Geely exported 87 percent more vehicles to 13,167 units compared to the same period of last year, putting the total number of auto exports for the seven months up by 67 percent to 100,795 units.