Baidu reveals auto-car time frame

Internet giant Baidu Inc announced on Thursday that its autonomous cars would be put into operation on urban roadways during the third World Internet Conference session, and it would invite passengers to take them for a test ride.

Wang Jin, senior vice-president and general manager of Baidu's autonomous driving unit, said the self-driving technology would reduce the travel costs and improve the efficiency of the traffic system, due to its safety, high efficiency and other characteristics.

"The new energy, sharing economy, and intelligence are profoundly transforming the entire auto sector. In the future, a car is more of a mobile terminal, as a working and living space producing other value-added consumptions," Wang said.

Wang added that, Baidu planned to commercialize the driverless technology three years later and achieve mass production of autonomous cars by 2021.

Starting in 2013, the key of the company's driverless project lies in the "Baidu Brain" artificial intelligence system. Focused on leading technologies, such as the computer vision and environmental awareness, it has realized the development from aided driving to autonomous driving.

Wang also unveiled the current self-driving technical level for the Beijing-based Baidu. The object identification accuracy rate for cameras rose to 90.13 percent this year, compared to the 89.6 percent accuracy rate last year.

In December last year, Baidu completed a 30km autonomous car test drive of the BMW. This year the company begin to test self-driving cars of domestic brands, Chery's first electric minicar eQ.

According to Wang, the eQ had already passed the first subject of the driver test, and it was expected to pass the rest four subjects three years later.