Skip to main content

Baidu boss under investigation for travelling in self-driving car

The CEO of Chinese search engine and mapping service, Baidu, is reportedly under police investigation following reports that he took one of the company’s self-driving cars to a technology conference.
July 7, 2017 Read time: 1 min

The CEO of Chinese search engine and mapping service, Baidu, is reportedly under police investigation following reports that he took one of the company’s self-driving cars to a technology conference.

Robin Li was in the passenger seat when made a video call to the conference in Beijing. A company employee was allegedly in the driver’s seat with his hands off the wheel. The city’s current traffic regulations do not allow self-driving cars on public roads.

Baidu is currently developing a self-driving car and announced at the conference that it had formed an alliance with 50 partners, including five Chinese automakers, TomTom and Ford to develop the cars.

Related Content

  • Open data gives new lease of life to public travel information screens
    March 4, 2014
    David Crawford finds resurgent interest in travel information screens for buildings. With city governments worldwide increasingly opening up and sharing their public transport data for general use, attention is focusing on the potential financial benefits – to transit operators and businesses more widely. Professor Stephen Goldsmith, who directs the US’ Harvard University’s Data-Smart City Solutions Project says: “Amid nationwide public-sector budget cuts, open data is providing a road map for improving tra
  • California self-driving car rules ‘perplexing’
    December 21, 2015
    California’s Department of Motor vehicles (DMV) has issued its draft self-driving vehicle deployment regulations, which, according to Google’s self-driving car chief, Chris Urmson, are perplexing. The DMV has proposed a draft rule that would require a self-driving car to have a licensed driver at all times. Urmson says that while this maintains the same old status quo, it falls short on allowing this technology to reach its full potential, while excluding those who need to get around but cannot drive.
  • Self-driving cars ‘could make traffic congestion worse’
    September 26, 2017
    The University of Sydney has released the results of a survey that indicates that Australian drivers are unlikely to share their vehicles with other travellers and increasing congestion, contrary to predictions made by transport experts and the motor industry. The University’s University of Sydney Business School’s latest Transport Opinion Survey, conducted by the School’s Institute of Transport and Logistic Studies
  • Mixed results for public-private traffic management partnerships
    January 25, 2012
    David Crawford looks at the somewhat patchy success to date of trying to involve the private sector in operating traffic management centres