BEIJING (AP) — Automakers are divided after a driverless ride-hailing service struck a pedestrian in China after reports on social media suggested the pedestrian was crossing the street despite a red light.
The vehicle’s operator, Chinese tech giant Baidu, said in a statement to Chinese media that the vehicle started moving when the light turned green, making light contact with the pedestrian. The pedestrian was taken to hospital, and an examination revealed no visible injuries, Baidu said.
Chinese financial news outlet Yicai reported that Sunday’s accident in Wuhan highlights the challenges that self-driving cars face in complex situations. The paper quoted experts as saying that self-driving technology may have limitations when dealing with unusual behavior, such as other vehicles or pedestrians violating traffic laws.
Images posted online showed a person sitting on the road in front of a self-driving car with sensors mounted on its roof. The English-language Shanghai Daily newspaper reported in a post on X that social media comments were mostly in support of Baidu and pointed out that the pedestrian had broken the law.
Baidu, the Beijing-based search engine and artificial intelligence company, is a leader in autonomous driving development in China. Its largest “robo-taxi” operation, with 300 vehicles, is in Wuhan, the major central Chinese city where the world’s first major COVID-19 outbreak occurred in early 2020.
The ride-hailing service, called Apollo Go, also operates in more localized areas in three other Chinese cities: Beijing, Shenzhen and Chongqing. The company launched its sixth generation of driverless taxis in May and announced it had more than halved the cost per vehicle to under $30,000.
