Baidu Unveils Advancements to the Apollo Intelligent Driving Ecosystem at CES 2019

On Jan. 8, Baidu introduced Apollo Enterprise, a new brand for a suite of customizable autonomous driving and Internet of Vehicles (IoV) solutions for mass production vehicles at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Apollo Enterprise is scalable, safe, and customizable based on enterprise customer needs. The five main Apollo Enterprise products and solutions are: 1)Highway autonomous driving solutions; 2) Autonomous valet parking solutions; 3) Fully autonomous driving minibus solutions; 4)Intelligent map data service platform, with options for commercial, ADAS, and high-definition maps; 5)DuerOS for Apollo, a set of AI-based IoV solutions, with voice assistant, augmented reality, and motion detection capabilities. Baidu is collaborating with global and national auto brands to deploy these solutions in production vehicles, including Ford, Chery, BYD, Kyundai Kia, Great Wall, and WM Motor.

“With the key development of Apollo Enterprise, Baidu Apollo expands from an open technology platform to a leading product and service provider for autonomous driving and connected vehicles. We’re excited to join hands with each and every Apollo Enterprise client to create safe, customizable, and scalable solutions to accelerate the commercialization of intelligent driving and enhance the mobility experience for everyone,” said Ya-Qin Zhang, President of Baidu.

Baidu self-driving car
Baidu self-driving car (Source: Udelv)

Baidu also launched the Apollo 3.5, an upgrade of the open autonomous driving platform Apollo 3.0. udelv, a California-based autonomous delivery van (ADV) company, is one example of companies using Apollo 3.5 to develop its own autonomous driving solutions. At CES 2019, udelv announced up to 100 ADVs, which have been developed on the Apollo 3.5 software platform, and will be deployed this year in several US locations, including the San Francisco Bay Area.

Baidu first announced its autonomous driving platform on April 19, 2017. As of today, the Apollo platform has grown into one of the largest autonomous driving ecosystems in the world, bringing together over 130 global partners and used by over 12,000 developers and partners worldwide.

At the same time, Baidu will also launch 100 robo-taxis, which will operate in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province in the south-central part of China, on 130 miles of city roads equipped with Baidu’s V2X (vehicle to everything) technology in 2019.