China’s Baidu to deploy “thousands” of robotaxis in Europe in partnership with Lyft

Chinese search engine Baidu announced on Monday a partnership with US ride hailing platform Lyft. The two companies will launch autonomous ride-hailing in key European markets. This is a major step towards the firm’s global robotaxi network plans. An announcement stated that the deployment would begin in Germany and UK in 2026 with the goal of operating thousands of vehicles in Europe in the next few years. FreeNow, acquired by Lyft in 2015 from Mercedes-Benz, BMW and other companies, will be a major enabler of deployment in these priority market. Though the move still needs regulatory approval, Reuters quoted a Lyft executive as saying that FreeNow had a “deep and long-lasting relationship” with regulators. Baidu, also known as “Google of China”runs 1,000 robocars in a dozen mainland Chinese towns and plans to launch Apollo Go robotaxi service in Singapore and Malaysia this year.[TechNodeReportingReuters (19459026]]