An unknown technical downside induced quite a few robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech large Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the course of visitors, trapping some passengers within the autos for greater than an hour.
In Wuhan, a metropolis in central China the place Baidu has deployed tons of of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, folks on Chinese social media reported witnessing the automobiles all of a sudden malfunction and cease working. Photos and movies shared on-line present the Baidu automobiles halted on busy highways, typically within the quick lane.
A school scholar in Wuhan tells WIRED that she was caught in a Baidu robotaxi with two pals for about 90 minutes on Tuesday. (She requested to be solely recognized together with her final identify, He, to guard her privateness.) The scholar says the automotive malfunctioned and stopped 4 or 5 instances in the course of the journey earlier than it will definitely parked in entrance of an intersection in japanese Wuhan. Luckily, it was not a busy highway, and the group was not in quick hazard. The display show within the automotive requested the passengers to stay within the automotive with seatbelt on and wait for an organization consultant to come back “in five minutes,” based on a photograph He shared with WIRED.
He says it took about half-hour to succeed in a Baidu buyer consultant on the telephone. “They kept saying it would be reported to their superior. But they didn’t explain what caused [the outage] or let us know how long we needed to wait for the staff to come,” He says. But nobody ever got here, and after one other hour of ready, the three passengers determined to only get out and go dwelling by themselves (the doorways weren’t locked).
On Chinese social media, different passengers additionally complained about being unable to succeed in Baidu’s buyer assist. “I tried every way I could think of to call for help using the options the app showed, but the phone line wouldn’t go through, and when I pressed the SOS button it told me it was unavailable. So then what exactly is the SOS for?” wrote one individual in a put up on PinkNote alongside a video displaying the button not working. She stated she needed to power the door to open and get out of the automotive as visitors halted to a whole cease behind her robotaxi. “Apollo Go, you really owe me an apology,” she wrote.
Baidu didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Local police in Wuhan issued a press release round midnight in China that stated the scenario was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” however the incident remains to be underneath investigation. No one was injured and all passengers have exited the autos, the police added. It’s unclear what number of of Baidu’s robotaxis might have been impacted.
One sprint cam recording posted to PinkNote reveals a automotive passing 16 Apollo Go autos parked on the highway within the span of 90 minutes. On a number of events, the video reveals the motive force narrowly avoiding hitting the robotaxis by braking or altering lanes on the final minute.
Others have been apparently not as lucky. In one other PinkNote put up, a person claimed he crashed into one of many malfunctioning Baidu autos. The man wrote within the caption that he was driving over 40 mph on a freeway when the automotive in entrance of him all of a sudden modified lanes to keep away from the stopped robotaxi. He couldn’t react quick sufficient and ended up operating into the self-driving automotive. Photos of the person’s orange SUV being towed away present that the automotive’s front-right fender was utterly torn off, and different components appeared to have sustained main injury.
https://www.wired.com/story/robotaxi-outage-in-china-leaves-passengers-stuck-in-cars-on-highways/