The driverless Robotaxi self-driving car developed by Baidu Apollo drives on the streets of Beijing.
Gao Yu | AFP | Getty Images
Shanghai – Chinese technology company Baidu The company said on Wednesday that its Apollo Go robotaxi unit expects to be profitable next year.
The forecast comes as Elon Musk emphasizes his plans to strengthen Tesla’s robotaxi business amid declining revenue.
Baidu is one of the major players in China’s emerging robotaxi market and received a license from a district in Beijing to start charging fees in November 2021.
While most cars still have an employee inside for safety reasons, the same Beijing region officially allowed Baidu and startup Pony.ai in September 2023 to charge for robotaxis with no people inside.
According to Baidu’s latest financial report, in the last three months of 2023, Apollo Go operated approximately 839,000 trips. The company is scheduled to release quarterly results on Thursday.
The company said about 45% of orders in Wuhan in the fourth quarter were fully driverless, up from 40% in the previous quarter.
In addition to increasing usage and lowering labor costs per ride, Baidu also makes cars more affordable.
Baidu announced on Wednesday that Apollo’s sixth-generation robotaxi will cost about 200,000 yuan ($28,169), less than half the price of the previous generation, the company said.
This year, Baidu plans to deploy 1,000 sixth-generation robotaxis in Wuhan, where the company already operates several autonomous vehicles.
Baidu said in a press release: “With declining costs and increasing orders, Apollo Go’s unit economics (UE) are close to break-even and are expected to achieve balance in the fourth quarter of 2024 and become profitable in 2025.
Rival robotaxi players Pony.ai is preparing for an overseas listing Mainland China, according to reports in late April on the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Others in the auto industry remain skeptical of fully driverless cars, which require extensive regulatory approval to operate.
Xpeng Vice Chairman Brian Gu told reporters last month that he didn’t expect robo-taxi to be a real business for at least five years.
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