Last week, Ford and Baidu announced their plans to work together on self-driving technology and test drive Level 4 self-driving cars in Beijing. The Ford and Baidu agreement will be valid for two years.
The level 4 autonomy means the vehicle is capable to drive itself in specific conditions. The final objective is to achieve Level 5 autonomy, which does not require the intervention of any human.
In the self-driving domain, we have seen many advancements recently. Baidu and Volvo joined hands to develop a Level 4 self-driving vehicle. Moreover, Baidu told us they will unveil their autonomous vehicle under the patronage of Hongqi or Red Flag.
Baidu has also joined hands with the administration of big cities like Beijing and Shanghai to build infrastructure that supports autonomous vehicles.
Ford is already working with Baidu to assist them in building Apollo, their open-source autonomous technology. On the other hand, Ford is creating its personalized autonomous system and test-driving their technology on the U.S roads. Lately, Ford has expanded its plans to test drive its cars in Washington D.C.
Ford also has plans to initiate its self-driving commercial service by 2021 while the Waymo is readying the same service as we speak. The service will be available in Phoenix, Arizona initially. Moreover, GM Cruise self-driving service will launch sometime in 2019.