Baidu wants to release a self-driving car before Google does

Baidu is known to those of us in the West as the Google of China, and it seems to go out of its way to earn that name. The company likes to copy Google’s every move, including expanding into markets that have next to nothing to do with its core business, the latest of which being the autonomous vehicle market. According to senior vice president Wang Jing, Baidu is working on its own self-driving car technology, which it intends to use as a form of public transportation in China in the near future. 

Chinese Internet search giant Baidu Inc. is joining the race to develop autonomous cars, and planning to field its first such vehicles in China within three years. Wang Jing, a Baidu senior vice president, told The Wall Street Journal that the company is setting up a new business unit that will work on developing autonomous vehicles for use as public shuttles. Mr. Wang will head the new unit. Technology heavyweights from Alphabet Inc.’s Google to Samsung Electronics Co. and car makers from Toyota Motor Corp. to Tesla Motors Inc. are competing to develop components and technology for self-driving and Internet-connected cars. Many car makers already offer features that enable cars to take over critical functions and increase safety. Baidu’s plan comes as Google is moving closer to commercializing its self-driving car technology. In September, Google hired an auto-industry veteran to run its project, which started in 2009, and it is now tackling more complicated maneuvers such as making right turns at stop lights. Like Google, Baidu has big ambitions to use its mapping data and “deep-learning” technology—in which computers simulate the brain in learning from massive amounts of data—to expand its scope well beyond online search.