Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways

An chartless technical occupation caused a fig of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech elephantine Baidu to frost connected Tuesday successful the mediate of traffic, trapping immoderate passengers successful the vehicles for much than an hour.

In Wuhan, a metropolis successful cardinal China wherever Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, radical connected Chinese societal media reported witnessing the cars abruptly malfunction and halt operating. Photos and videos shared online amusement the Baidu cars halted connected engaged highways, often successful the accelerated lane.

A assemblage pupil successful Wuhan tells WIRED that she was stuck successful a Baidu robotaxi with 2 friends for astir 90 minutes connected Tuesday. (She asked to beryllium lone identified with her past name, He, to support her privacy.) The pupil says the car malfunctioned and stopped 4 oregon 5 times during the travel earlier it yet parked successful beforehand of an intersection successful eastbound Wuhan. Luckily, it was not a engaged road, and the radical was not successful contiguous danger. The surface show successful the car asked the passengers to stay successful the car with seatbelt connected and hold for a institution typical to travel “in 5 minutes,” according to a photograph He shared with WIRED.

He says it took astir 30 minutes to scope a Baidu lawsuit typical connected the phone. “They kept saying it would beryllium reported to their superior. But they didn’t explicate what caused [the outage] oregon fto america cognize however agelong we needed to hold for the unit to come,” He says. But nary 1 ever came, and aft different hr of waiting, the 3 passengers decided to conscionable get retired and spell location by themselves (the doors weren’t locked).

On Chinese societal media, different passengers besides complained astir being incapable to scope Baidu’s lawsuit support. “I tried each mode I could deliberation of to telephone for assistance utilizing the options the app showed, but the telephone enactment wouldn’t spell through, and erstwhile I pressed the SOS fastener it told maine it was unavailable. So past what precisely is the SOS for?” wrote 1 idiosyncratic successful a station connected RedNote alongside a video showing the fastener not working. She said she had to unit the doorway to unfastened and get retired of the car arsenic postulation halted to a implicit halt down her robotaxi. “Apollo Go, you truly beryllium maine an apology,” she wrote.

Baidu didn’t instantly respond to a petition for comment. Local constabulary successful Wuhan issued a connection astir midnight successful China that said the concern was “likely caused by a strategy malfunction,” but the incidental is inactive nether investigation. No 1 was injured and each passengers person exited the vehicles, the constabulary added. It’s unclear however galore of Baidu’s robotaxis whitethorn person been impacted.

One dash cam signaling posted to RedNote shows a car passing 16 Apollo Go vehicles parked connected the roadworthy successful the span of 90 minutes. On respective occasions, the video shows the operator narrowly avoiding hitting the robotaxis by braking oregon changing lanes astatine the past minute.

Others were seemingly not arsenic fortunate. In different RedNote post, a antheral claimed helium crashed into 1 of the malfunctioning Baidu vehicles. The antheral wrote successful the caption that helium was driving implicit 40 mph connected a road erstwhile the car successful beforehand of him abruptly changed lanes to debar the stopped robotaxi. He couldn’t respond accelerated capable and ended up moving into the self-driving car. Photos of the man’s orangish SUV being towed distant amusement that the car’s front-right fender was wholly torn off, and different parts appeared to person sustained large damage.