Apollo Go Robotaxi Network

Wuhan is Baidu's biggest robotaxi city — until a cloud outage froze over 100 cars at once in March 2026 and triggered a nationwide licence freeze. The city's own transport bureau counts 400 cars, not the 1,000+ Baidu is often credited with.

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 4 more in Wuhan · 🚗 Autonomous vehicles guide · 🚲 Mobility projects

Baidu's Apollo Go (萝卜快跑) began carrying passengers with a safety driver in Wuhan in May 2022; by August 2022 the city became the first in China with fully driverless commercial robotaxi rides, initially across 13km² of the Economic and Technological Development Zone. The service is now Baidu's largest single-city deployment, covering more than 3,000km² by the company's own account — though Wuhan's own transportation bureau put the active fleet at 400 vehicles in 2025 and called widely circulated claims of 1,000+ 'rumors.' Undercutting taxi fares by roughly 60-75% (4-16 yuan per 10km against 18-30 yuan) has fed a genuine driver-livelihood backlash. On 31 March 2026 a cloud-side fleet-management outage froze over 100 Apollo Go cars simultaneously across the city for up to two hours, with silent in-car SOS systems leaving passengers stranded; the incident triggered a nationwide freeze on new autonomous-driving permits from 29 April 2026, lifted only after an industry-wide safety review completed in late June 2026, with vehicles — some still carrying safety drivers — reappearing on Wuhan's streets from early July.