First driver taxis are landing in Europe

As internal competition increases, Chinese autonomous driving companies are trying to increase their competitive advantage by entering new markets abroad – and Europe is an appetizing target.

The Chinese Technological Giant Baidu She prepares to bring her robotáxis to the old continent.

The first taxis without driver of Europe arrive in Switzerland later this year, and the company already has plans to widen its fleet to Türkiye a little later.

According to sources cited by, Baidu is already in talks with Switzerland Postauto, which manages the public service of the country, to start using its autonomous taxis later this year.

Baidu’s new robotáxis fleet is not the only one who prepares to get to Europe in the near future. Earlier this month, he announced that he plans to launch in Europe next year autonomous taxis equipped with Chinese autopilot technology.

In January this year, even before the arrival of Baidu and Uber, another Chinese company, A, launched a Autonomous vehicle pilot program in Switzerland. In March, the company began to test a service autonomous buses in France.

Chinese robotáxis lead the race

China has the largest market for robotics From the world: It has a larger fleet (with about one million vehicles currently in circulation), makes more trips and has more government support than the US gives its companies, note the.

Although taxi services without drivers such as those already are common in some cities in the US, and there is about half a million robotics assets in the American streets, companies in the country They are having difficulty to expand its fleet due to the very fragmented nature of the market and the differences in regulation in each state.

That Elon Musk has long said that the, the robotics From Tesla will arrive in June to Austin, Texas, and will be in other US cities by the end of the year. But, as often happens with musk predictions, it seems that This one will not realize.

The deadline that Musk imposed himself is at the door, and his Cybercabs, piloted by the controversial system Full Self-Driving da Teslathey are being the target of a tight federal controlparticularly with regard to safety in low visibility conditions.

Europe also has demanding regulations, especially with regard to road safetywhich can make it difficult to land the Chinese robotaxis on the continent.

But the imminent arrival of robotics Chinese to Europe occurs at a time when Chinese companies are bet on widening your success In the country to new markets – namely that of the old continent, which suddenly became appealing to the tariff war released by Donald Trump.