- Sophia Tung rode on one of Baidu’s Apollo Go Robotaxi in Shenzhen, China.
- She told Bi that the security driver had to break the autonomous management system during her journey.
- Greeting an Apollo Go was also a challenge, she said.
Baidu’s Apollo Go Robotax was nearly crashed during a trip causing a security driver to break down the autonomous steering system, told a Business Insider knight.
Sophia Tung, a San Francisco -based engineer who documents her Robotaxi experiences on Youtube, visited Shenzhen, China, in December To make a trip to Baidu’s robotax.
Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, is one of the Robotaxi race leaders in China as the country makes an aggressive push towards autonomy and electrification. Another high competitor is Weride.
The company currently operates in 11 cities, including Wuhan, Shenzhen and Beijing. It is unclear which cities have vehicles that are fully autonomous or supervised by a human security driver.
Apollo Go has also not publicly discovered its Robotaxi Fleet size. Baidu’s general manager, Robin Li, said in a profit call in August that the company has more than 400 robotaxis operating in Wuhan, in which most vehicles are unconscious and operate without “human security officers”.
Similar to washing the laws of the state that regulate autonomous vehicles in the US, companies like Baidu must comply with various local government laws.
There is little public data on the security of Apollo Go Baidu. The company said in a press release from May that “any autonomous vehicle undergoes more than a thousand rigorous security tests Before you hit the road, including hardware and software inspections, human-compliant interaction tests and compliance controls. “
In July, an incident involving an pedestrian who was hit by an Apollo Go went viral. Social media users took the side of the autonomous vehicle, saying the infantry was passing when the light was green, the Associated Press reported.
Tung told her that her journey nearly 9 miles was “very harsh”, giving her car illness, and that she feared her experience would end up in a collision while the autonomous vehicle joined in a lane that had another melting vehicle.
She posted a video on Youtube in January about her journey to an Apollo Go, titling her a “nightmare experience”.
“It was very scary actually,” she told her. “I honestly thought it would fall.”
A Baidu spokesman refused to provide a comment on Tung’s experience of this story.
Greeting an apollo go
Apollo Go’s app user interface Sofia tung
Greeting an Apollo Go Robotaxi was an obstacle in itself, Tung said.
The engineer said the Apollo Go app demanded that she submit a form of government identification – in this case, her passport – before she could book a trip. Other Chinese Ridshar services like Didi also require some form of identification.
This is different from SH.BA Ridshare companies like Alphabet’s Waymo, Uber and Lyft, which do not require an ID to use its services.
Booking the current trip was another challenge, she said.
Unlike most US RediSar Services, in which users can place their location location, Apollo Go Riders are limited to certain points of intake within a given service area.
One of the points of taking was in a taxi stay in a luxury center near the Shenzhen talent park area, Tung said. She waited a few hours before she gave up and try to greet a trip the next day.
When you tried to book a robotax, Tung said the Apollo Go app provided in incorrect or useless data.
For example, the app will tell a user how many people are in front of you, waiting for an Apollo Go, but the app does not mean if those people were caught, Tung said.
The app also provided the incorrect timely waiting time, she said.
“It gives you a timely appreciated time,” Tung said. “But time is not correct. When Countdown hit zero, it reset again in 25 minutes.”
The next day, Tung said she spent nearly four hours trying to greet an Apollo.
“I was very relieved when I finally got a car because it was literally just an absolute nightmare trying to get one more,” she said.
A tight call
A security operator was present during the journey of Sophia Tung inside an Apollo Go. Sofia tung
When a robotax retreated to Tung’s location, she was immediately surprised to see a human safety driver inside the vehicle.
Waymo used security leaders when they were testing their robotaxis in a limited group before extracting the public service. Security leaders were present if the autonomous system had to be disconnected.
“At least in Shenzhen, there are videos of people who get Apollo go without security drivers, which I thought would happen,” Tung said.
Tung said the journey began with a “super unexpected start” as the car accelerated tightly and made the reunions back and forth among the many lanes.
Tung compared Apollo goes with a previous version of the full supervisory system of Tesla, which requires constant supervision of a human leader.
During the trip, Tung documented in her video how the autonomous driver brake or passed between lanes without showing a lane change.
During those moments, Tung said that the human driver did not speak or reacted to sudden movements.
This changed when Apollo went later made an effort to unite two lanes.
Tung said the driver disconnected autonomous driving when Apollo Go and another vehicle tried to join in the same lane.
A security driver disconnected the autonomous management system of Apollo Go, Sophia Tung said. Sofia tung
Tung’s video shows the safety driver catching the wheel and manually driving the car some distances before re-engaging the autonomous steering system.
“I am very sure if the security driver would not have actually grabbed the wheel and would stop it, it would have been taken out of the car that was coming,” Tung said.
In another incident a few minutes later, the safety driver could be seen in the Tung video reaching the wheel, appearing to prepare to disconnect the autonomous driver to avoid a bus that stopped at the right -wing lane.
During the trip, Tung’s video also showed that Apollo goes by misidentifying objects and road marks in her environment from time to time.
A screen inside an Apollo Go shows the robotaxi identifying pedestrians as vehicles passing a junction. Sofia tung
For example, pedestrians walking on a crossing road appeared on the monitor as cars. At another point, the robotax would discover a dangerous cone on the road when there was no object, Tung said in the video.
Room for improvement
Tung told BI that the general user experience Apollo Go, from the travel app, can be improved.
While the car itself was quite comfortable, Tung said the driving experience was harsh.
“I think Apollo’s biggest thing is the current control of the car,” she said. “Juds is just not excellent.”
Tung noted that this was her only trip to an Apollo Go and that she would be curious to try the vehicle in other service areas like Wuhan.
“I will not write completely alone,” she said.