Chinese largest search company Baidu has confirmed that it would show off its autonomous car prototype in China in the second quarter of 2015. Baidu's Vice President of Tech and Strategy,Wanf Jin, made this known at the 2015 China Cloud Computing Conference.
Baidu's driverless cars will be built by an undisclosed third-party automaker(Jin did not reveal the name) and will make use of its mapping services, big data and insights from its Google X like division, Baidu Institute of Deep Learning or the ''Baidu brain'' that focuses on innovation and emerging technologies, in order to improve upon the vehicle's experience while on Beijing highway.
Baidu's self-driving car will have a steering wheel, gas and brake pedals to steer the car, unlike Google self-driving cars that are driven by software and sensors and operate at the push of a button.
Baidu says its idea of a self-driving car is not one that totally takes the human driver from the equation, but one that will give them freedom. That is to say when the car is in autonomous mode you can decide to resume driving.
Baidu made headlines in July last year when it announced that it was working on an autonomous car, and worked with BNW on the project. Who knows BNW might be the unnamed Baidu third-party automobile manufacturer.
I can just picture Baidu's car against Google car in the market.
Bookmark us or to stay updated on the latest news