Beijing (ZXZC)- China’s tech giant, Baidu, announced its public testing of its Apollo Go in Shanghai today, making Shanghai the fifth city available with its autonomous taxi service and becoming the only company which offers robotaxi service in the three top-tier cities in China, namely Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai.

the Baidu Apollo; photo credit: Baidu

According to Baidu, the company will gradually open 150 stations in urban areas within the city, including residential, commercial, offices, and major transportation hubs, providing passengers with convenient service from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m every day.

In addition, the Beijing Apollo Go service has expanded to Tongzhou District, marking another milestone for Baidu’s autonomous driving business layout. The first batch routes in the suburb district will cover 22 stations along a 31 miles trail, allowing for over 100 trips per day.

The future market potential for autonomous vehicles is huge, primarily through practical commercial applications such as driverless taxi services.

As of now, China’s autonomous driving industry has entered into a new phase of development, with the exploration of in-scale applications being the focal point. Vice president of Baidu’s autonomous driving business division and Chief Safe Operation Officer Wei Dong believes that the implementation has to undergo three phases, regionalization, commercialization, and verification via unmanned on-road operation. After eight years of research and development, Baidu Apollo has become one of the global leaders in the driverless transportation service industry.

Apollo L4 autonomous driving has been tested for 8.7 million miles by August 2021. In addition to the Apollo Go service launch in Shanghai, Baidu is designed for business expansions covering 25 more cities in three years, to provide an at-hand autonomous driving experience for 3 million people in China.