Baidu surges 12.5% on robotaxi optimism. Apollo Go expects to achieve profitability in Wuhan in 2025

Baidu gained +12.5% overnight in HK on heightened optimism surrounding autonomous vehicles. The government said that it will step up policy support for the company's Apollo Go program. The autonomous vehicles, mostly used as taxis, could soon be expanding yet again in China. Apparently, government ministers said they would even support autonomous rental vehicles! The future appears to be now as Baidu is more advanced than Tesla in terms of miles driven autonomously, though the latter is more advanced in sensor driving without access to maps. At a conference, our team heard an interesting debate about Tesla's technology compared to Baidu’s, with one speaker saying that autonomous will be the growth driver for Tesla. But it is already a significant driver for Baidu, which trades at a much lower multiple than Tesla.

Recently, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology solicited opinions on the "Beijing Autonomous Driving Car Regulations (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)". The city intends to support autonomous driving cars for urban public electric car passenger transportation, online car-hailing, car rental and other urban travel services.

The relevant person in charge of the Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology said that the city will focus on solving the main problems faced by autonomous driving car innovation activities in specific areas through legislation, and provide clear, transparent and predictable institutional norms for market entities of autonomous driving cars at L3 level and above on the basis of ensuring safety.

Guotai Junan pointed out that Apollo Go is expected to achieve profitability in the commercial model of self-driving online car-hailing.

Apollo Go is a self-driving travel service platform owned by Baidu, which has opened passenger-carrying test operations in 11 cities and conducted fully unmanned automatic driving travel service tests in Beijing, Wuhan, Chongqing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai.

The bank stated that compared with the manned version, unmanned online car-hailing has lower prices and better passenger experience. According to Apollo Go's plan, it will achieve full coverage in Wuhan and put 1,000 sixth-generation mass-produced unmanned vehicles into operation by 2024. It is expected that with the increase in the number of vehicles in the future, the operating cost per vehicle will be significantly reduced, and economies of scale may be realized. Apollo Go expects to achieve breakeven in Wuhan by the end of 2024 and profitability in 2025.