Shanghai (ZXZC)- Chinese Internet giant Baidu announced on May 10 that Wei Dong, former CEO of the Chinese state-controlled online ride-hailing platform Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur, has joined Baidu as Vice President and Chief Safe Operation Officer of Baidu’s Intelligent Driving Group.

Wei Dong; photo credit: Baidu

Mr. Wei will lead the commercial operation of Apollo robotaxi service and help Baidu speed up the domestic scale deployment and commercialization of shared autonomous cars, said Baidu.

Baidu is vigorously pushing ahead with the commercial deployment of its autonomous driving vehicles. It started opening fully driverless robotaxi services to the public in Beijing on May 2, 2021, which is China's first paid autonomous vehicle service where users can hail a robotaxi without a safety driver behind the steering wheel.

The fully driverless Apollo Go Robotaxi service was first launched in Beijing's Shougang Park, one of the venues for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, and will soon provide shuttle services for athletes and staff at the games.

Since October last year, Baidu has launched autonomous car tests for the public under trial operations in such areas as Yizhuang, Haidian and Shunyi in Beijing.

On April 19, Li Zhenyu, Senior Corporate Vice President of Baidu and General Manager of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group, noted that Baidu Apollo had completed over 10 million kilometers of road testing for autonomous driving.

Baidu Apollo robotaxi; photo credit: Baidu

Baidu has been investing in autonomous driving for eight years, and has established a car fleet of 500 vehicles for autonomous car trials. Moreover, it has gained 2,900 patents for intelligent driving and 221 licenses for testing drive, of which 179 are available for passenger-carrying tests.

Over the next three years, Apollo plans to deploy 3,000 autonomous cars in 30 cities in China, offering robotaxi services to up to 3 million users.