Baidu's driverless 'robotaxis' in China: All you need to know  

While Apple, Google, Tesla are still at the nascent stage of developing self-driving cars and even toying with the idea of nixing them in the short-term, Chinese company Baidu, best known for its search engine, is making significant advances in autonomous driving. The company has increased the operating hours at night of its driverless taxi service in Wuhan, central China.

From this week, the public will be able to use its robotaxis in Wuhan between 7 am and 11 pm without safety drivers in the drivers' seats. Earlier, its unmanned vehicles were used in the city from 9 am to 5 pm. The updated scheme is anticipated to cover one million customers in specific areas in Wuhan.

The prolonged operations at night happened as the company uses a mix of third party cameras, radars, and lidars to increase visibility in low visibility conditions.

Baidu began providing fully autonomous robotaxi rides in August, charging customers the same as a taxi. The company's robotaxi-hailing app, Apollo Go, completed more than 474,000 rides in Q3, up 311% from the previous quarter. As of Q3, Apollo Go had received more than 1.4 million orders.

Apollo Go currently has over 50 fully autonomous taxis in service, and its operation area in Wuhan is more than 130 square kilometres.

One of the major technical challenges with autonomous driving has always been the nighttime environment because it is difficult for vehicles to discern obstacles and pedestrians in low light.

Baidu has begun testing Apollo Go in a number of Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In November, Baidu unveiled designs for its sixth-generation electric robotaxi, the Apollo RT6 EV, which is a cross between an SUV and a minivan with a detachable steering wheel, last month.

A robotaxi, also known as self-driving taxi, or driverless taxi, is a self-driving car (SAE automation level 4 or 5) that works for a ridesharing company.

Sensors, actuators, complex algorithms, machine learning systems, and powerful processors are used to execute software in self-driving cars. Based on a variety of sensors located throughout the vehicle, self-driving cars create and maintain a map of their surroundings. It is said that they could have good road safety and avoid congestion and help in reducing pollution and energy consumption.

Several companies such as Waymo, Baidu and Pony.ai in the US and China are testing robotaxi services.