Wuhan police rescue passengers stranded in robotaxis

Police rescued multiple passengers stuck in robotaxis on Tuesday night in Wuhan, Hubei province. The vehicles had ceased moving, leaving the passengers unable to exit on account of passing traffic.

Starting from 8:57 pm on Tuesday, the 122 emergency call center received successive reports from the public that multiple Apollo Go vehicles had stopped in the middle of the road and were unable to move, according to a notice released by Wuhan's public security bureau on Wednesday.

Local authorities and employees from Apollo Go arrived at the scene to deal with the problem. All passengers have been safely removed from the car with no casualties. The cause of the incident is under further investigation, the notice said.

The malfunction was initially determined to be caused by a system failure.

Baidu launched the autonomous driving service Apollo Go in 2021 and began business in Wuhan in May 2022.

Wuhan was among China's first pilot cities to trial the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles.

Online rumors have speculated about how many were involved in the incident, but no official announcement has reported the number of vehicles or passengers as of yet.