Baidu said it is considering using Tesla’s future robotaxis in China as the two major companies move closer together.
Following Elon Musk’s recent visit to China, Tesla appears to be making progress towards introducing “fully supervised self-driving” to the country.
The automaker has reportedly received conditional approval to bring the system to market.
Along with this approval, Tesla was reported to be working with Chinese tech giant Baidu to develop self-driving maps.
Tesla is already working with Baidu on navigation maps in China, and reports suggest the two sides are nearing an agreement on self-driving.
Now, according to a report in Shanghai Securities News, a Baidu executive said that the company is considering using Tesla’s robotaxis in the future (translated from Chinese).
On May 15, Xu Baoqiang, general manager of Baidu’s self-driving technology department, told a reporter from the Shanghai Securities News that Baidu will be focusing on Tesla’s specific application model and global market regarding the robotaxis (shared taxis) that Tesla will release. He said he would take advantage of the pace of entry. We will consider cooperation opportunities in the Chinese market and other areas.
Baidu has its own self-driving efforts and offers ride-sharing services using its own vehicles. It would be interesting to partner with Tesla on self-driving.
Tesla has often said it is willing to supply and license its self-driving technology to other companies, and recently said it is in talks with major OEMs.
Electrek’s view
The real question is: Does Tesla want to partner with Baidu on this, or is it being asked to do so as part of the approval process?
China is notoriously protectionist when it comes to foreign companies operating in its market. Tesla is one of the rare automakers that managed to avoid this problem by signing a deal to build a Gigafactory Shanghai in a free trade zone, but that doesn’t mean it can keep securing contracts.
Generally, foreign companies have been forced to partner with Chinese companies to establish themselves domestically.
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