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In China, self-driving taxis are appealing to the urban population, especially over short distances.
Baidu Group’s self-driving taxis, controlled by artificial intelligence, carry almost as many passengers every day as a normal taxi in Beijing. This service was launched in November 2021. Conventional taxis are reluctant to pick up customers traveling short distances due to the fares charged. Autonomous electric taxis make no distinction and make an average of 29 trips per day compared to 30 for a normal taxi and 10 to 20 for carpooling services. These driverless vehicles remain expensive, 70,000 euros on average, which limits their use to large cities