Self-driving cars were invented by Google and the Google of China, Baidu, isn’t behind its American counterpart. It has created a new brand called JiDU which has announced plans for launching a self-driving car by 2023. They are calling it the robocar which will be fully unveiled at the Beijing auto show in April.
“JiDU has completed the visual and functional design of the Robocar concept car, which will make its debut in April as planned. Let’s set off towards an infinitely possible future together,” said Yiping Xia, CEO of JiDu.
In the teaser, one can easily see that the car is riddled with sensors that come out of its hood, almost like small turrets and they are retractable and hidden by flaps. The car also seems to have frameless doors that open outward.
The robocar maker has also revealed that it has specifically designed a new logo called the Pixel J which it claims is the first logo that has been designed specifically for an autonomous vehicle.
In China, autonomous cars are taking off as are robotaxi services. Already there is the Xpeng P5 which boasts some serious autonomous capabilities as it has become the world’s first production car with a LiDAR and has some advanced autonomous capabilities.
Apart from JiDu, Baidu also has the Apollo robotaxis which leverages the QNX operating system.