The Chinese search giant Baidu has taken another step towards supporting the development of self-driving vehicles. The tech giant has announced a new autonomous vehicle platform called Project Apollo to help car companies accelerate their self-driving car developments. With the platform, Baidu will be offering the partners both tech and open source code needed to operate autonomous vehicles.

Baidu plans to open up Project Apollo for testing in closed environments in July and then offer it for vehicles operating in urban conditions later this year. Baidu set an optimistic goal for itself to deliver self-driving vehicles to the market by the year 2018. The company got permissions to test the vehicles in California last year and also partnered with Nvidia to work together towards the common goal.

Baidu initially started working on driverless cars with German car manufacturer BMW which has been working on the technology for well over a decade. However, the partnership was called off last year reportedly due to different pace of both the companies. The new project, Project Apollo will also help Baidu find new partners to work with, including car manufacturers from its home country.

Last year, BMW, in association with Intel and Mobileye announced a platform to create common technology standards and bring together multiple brands working in the same direction. According to Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich, the platform would play a critical role in advancing the safety aspects of driverless cars.

A survey last year indicated that Chinese were more open to the idea of using a car with autonomous functions compared to Germans and Americans. And while Baidu has got the tech and data to build for its home market, it won’t be easy to beat Waymo (Google) in other parts of the world because of its deep map data and years of head start.

Source: MarketWired

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With the plans to rebuild ground transportation from scratch, the race for autonomous vehicles is on. Tech brands are working overtime to make sure they are a stakeholder in this space while automobile companies are supporting the innovations to avoid being the Kodak of auto industry. Baidu has previously announced that it is working on its own version of autonomous vehicles and also recently introduced a platform in association with Nvidia to support the developments.

Baidu CFO Jennifer Li at a recent Bloomberg conference reiterated the company’s plans to bring driverless cars and shared that the company will have driverless vehicles by 2018 with mass production possible by 2020. This closely matches the timelines Elon Musk has shared for Tesla.

Li stressed on Baidu’s capabilities and investments in artificial intelligence which would allow for rapid progress in this space. China is a huge car market and some recent surveys indicate that the Chinese people are more open to the idea of these vehicles.

While the promises are bold and the company optimistic, it is going to be a steep climb, even for a brand like Baidu. They recently got permission to test their vehicles in California however Baidu barely exists outside of its home country. Autonomous vehicles will heavily rely on mapping data and Baidu hasn’t got anything outside its home turf. That is where Google has generated heaps of data and has invested billions in the self-driving car project.

Regulations will also define how the technology is introduced and adopted by the masses. The Chinese regulators have shown some positive signs to the developments until now but in most cases, they have been slow to adopt new technologies in other industries.

We are anxious to see if Baidu delivers on the promise of a new face of transportation in 2018.

Source: Bloomberg

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The German carmaker Volkswagen’s luxury car unit Audi plunged knee deep into the Chinese market by setting collaboration with the three tech titans Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent to offer an array of digital services in the world’s largest car market.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed as the lux-brand and FAW-Volkswagen, VW’s joint venture with FAW Car Co Ltd signed the letters of intent with the internet technology groups at an annual summit in Shanghai.

Volkswagen has long been hobbled by scandals over emission tests, distracting it in a race of global carmakers to develop computer-aided services for drivers. The car maker asserts that it would have to remain in control of the relationship with the car user which is why it stopped interacting with the US-based ride-hailing service Uber, and technology giants Google and Apple.

As per the agreement, Baidu-Audi combination aims to provide the use of smartphone apps in its cars, Tencent-Audi includes helping drivers to make good use of WeChat communication app and Alibaba’s contribution would mainly be providing the drivers with more real-time traffic news services and 3D maps to the drivers.

This whole setup will enable the traditional carmaker to avoid being left behind in the race of ‘connected cars’ as in a recent move German rival BMW teamed up with Israeli sensor maker Mobileye to produce autonomous cars over the next ten years. Audi dominates sales in Chinese market leaving behind BMW and Mercedes which nearly accounts to one-third of the total sales.

Martin Kühl, spokesman for Audi in China believes that the carmaker has been successful in developing technology in China which is now being used elsewhere. The Touchscreen technology that got developed in Beijing is now being used by engineers in Germany. In his recent quote, he adds, “The Chinese are early adopters. If you’re not here with the latest stuff, then you can’t win.” (Financial Times).

In 2013, an R&D centre went functional in Beijing to develop technology that would first prioritise and monetize Chinese market and then export globally. Maintaining the lead in the market requires it to invest into internet- connected technology.

Source: Financial Times

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The internet is buzzing with the news of Ctrip investing USD 180 Million in the Indian OTA MakeMyTrip. Ctrip will take an initial position through convertible bonds and MMT also gave them permission to acquire the common stakes in open market. The news of investment has pushed the stock prices of MakeMyTrip northwards with a growth of over 20 percent on Thursday. Ctrip will eventually build a stake of up to 26.6 of MMT’s shares giving them right to name a director.

The entire travel industry has got eyes set on China and India as both the markets hold huge potential for growth. MakeMyTrip clearly stands to gain more as the investment comes soon after they announced that they plan to bear losses for another two years in a bid to acquire more customers. They plan to push the hotel and packages business for it to account for around 70% of their total revenues over the next two years. This was important for the company as the number of internet users in India is growing fast (17% in first half of 2015) and every ecommerce company is aggressively trying to attract the new customers. The capital from Ctrip would help them have an upper hand in the competition.

India is an interesting proposition for Ctrip and many other Chinese brands for the same reasons mentioned above. The smartphone sales and number of internet users are going up fast and nobody wants to give the huge opportunities a pass. Another reason for the interest of Chinese giants in India is because of the fast growing economy. In contrast, pessimism is clouding the Chinese economy which is clearly indicated by the stock market.

Commenting on this new association, James Liang, Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ctrip, said, “Today’s announcement marks the beginning of the strategic relationship between Ctrip and MakeMyTrip. Through this transaction, Ctrip has now gained exposure to India’s fast growing online travel market.”

Ctrip was earlier working with Alibaba but the association came to an end recently. It could be because Alibaba’s own product Alitrip competes with Ctrip and also because Ctrip had partnership with Qunar which was partially owned by Baidu. Even though the combination of Ctrip, Qunar, Baidu and Priceline (invested USD 500 million in Ctrip recently) is a strong force in travel industry, there is hardly a prediction one can make. The industry is fragile and the size and scale of Alibaba can be a major problem for Ctrip.

Alibaba has been an investor in the mobile payment platform Paytm and recently increased its holding in the company. Backed by Alibaba, Paytm is also making moves in the Indian travel industry. It was also reported that the Chinese search giant Baidu is planning to invest in Indian startups. With these Chinese companies fast moving outside of their home country, we can certainly expect an interesting year for the Indian travel industry.

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A large number of brands are showing interest in autonomous cars and they will probably transform both urban transport and long distance travel in a big way. With the motive to join the race of developing autonomous cars, Chinese internet search giant Baidu is planning to develop self-driving cars in China within the next three years. Earlier this year we learned that they are working on a prototype and it has already completed tests on a route with varied roads and environmental conditions.

(Photo Credit: Image by Wall Street Journal)

Baidu’s two prototypes BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo autonomous cars successfully completed a 30-kilometer (18.6 miles) test drive around Beijing, which included complex driving actions such as U-turns, left turns, changing lanes, and merging into traffic from on-ramps. The route included highways with the car’s speed peaking at 100 kilometers per hour during the tests. The route was mapped out by the Highly Automated Driving (HAD) maps.

According to a report, a Baidu spokesperson said:

“We’ve tested the car at night and day, as well as in medium rain, and – since this is Beijing – in smog of course. The models we’ll develop next year will have even more sensors, and we believe it will be able to handle all weather and road conditions.”

Baidu’s cars are well-equipped with a laser radar, sensors and cameras with varying visibility ranges. Its software draws on Baidu’s highly detailed maps as well as its “deep-learning” technology. For the fast development of these future cars, the company hired Stanford researcher Andre Ng who has helped set up Google’ artificial intelligence centre. The autonomous cars will operate on fixed routes or within set urban areas. Baidu will co-operate with some governments to provide shared vehicles like a shuttle service for public use. Baidu’s next steps involve testing the prototype cars in new situations like narrow city streets or wide boulevards. China faces unpredictable driving conditions. This can be a challenge for the company.

According to a survey, 93% of Chinese respondents were interested in owning a car with autonomous functions, compared with 76% of Germans and 67% of Americans. This proves the fact that the Chinese people have the highest demand for it. Contrarily, China still needs to enact laws for autonomous cars to run on roads.

Wang Jing, Baidu’s senior vice-president, stated that the company is establishing a new business unit that will work on developing autonomous vehicles for use as public shuttles. Mr. Wang will be heading this unit. Currently, Baidu is in discussions with the Chinese and foreign automakers.

Baidu is facing competition with Google and other traditional automakers to develop self-driving cars. Google has 50-plus self-driving cars that have covered more than a million miles and are currently being tested on public roads in urban areas of California, Austin, Texas. Baidu might introduce an autonomous car this year. Once developed, this will be a major milestone for both Baidu and China’s evolution towards the driverless vehicle future.

Brands are betting big on the new autonomous car technologies and with the current pace, things look very promising. Google’s autonomous car is going places and the cab hailing service Uber showed interest in these developments for future applications. Baidu’s autonomous car is another example of how the travel industry is assimilating technology for developing futuristic vehicles.

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