First autonomous rental car service in the world starts: revolution for travelers!

First autonomous rental car service in the world starts: revolution for travelers!

China - in 2025 it really gets down to business, because the future of travel is already promising. Baidu Apollo and Car Inc. jointly launched the first autonomous rental car solution worldwide. This innovative service is aimed at all over the age of 18 and offers a "fully autonomous + fully automatic" experience that has not yet existed in this form. Users can easily reserve their vehicles online, specify the desired pick -up time and place, and the system takes care of everything else. The vehicle then parked independently at the specified location, and the users only have to verify their identity for unlocking. At the end of the trip, the car brings back to the return location. Here, the tenants can flexibly determine their travel route within the specified operating area. A real progress for all travelers!

The autonomous rental cars based on Baidu Apollos L4-Level autonomous driving system are tailor-made "Apollo Go" Robotaxi vehicles and offer space for up to three people. It is important to mention that there is no front seats available for the initial fleet, which means that only a maximum of three passengers can ride at the same time. The pricing is based on the existing short -term rental products from Car Inc., which makes it easy to estimate the costs. These start with flexible booking options from 4 hours to 7 days, which is really practical. By June 2025, Apollo Go has already carried out over 11 million service trips worldwide - so you can see that there is a lively demand here. An increase in orders by 75% in the first quarter of 2025 proves that people are willing to try out new technologies.

a step into the future

The offer is not only intended for direct use - it also aims to accelerate the large -scale introduction of autonomous technologies in various areas of application. Together with Car Inc., Baidu wants to implement self-driving technology in the cultural and tourism industry in order to develop scalable innovation models in numerous cities. Users can reserve autonomous vehicles in advance to flexibly visit cultural sights and urban attractions. This is how modern trips meet efficient technology.

The two companies plan to deepen their cooperation in the next three to five years and want to set a yardstick for the industry. The focus is on offering safe, efficient and individually tailored mobility experiences. In addition, the development of industrial forms for renting autonomous vehicles is being used to ensure the safety, stability and reliability of this new form of mobility. These efforts are based on Apollos more than a decade experience in research and development as well as the broad service network of Car Inc.

market development and forecasts

The vision of fully autonomous vehicles is by no means new; It has existed for many years and is slowly but surely becoming a reality. The technology continues to develop rapidly and is not only used on the street, but also in other modes of transport such as rail and water. The pioneers in this area are in particular the USA and China. In 2023 there were already 44 active autonomous vehicles in the United States. And the forecasts show that non-autonomous passenger cars will be sold by 2035.

While various manufacturers use vehicles in SAE level 4 (high autonomy) in the test phase-often in commercial use, such as Waymo or Moia-private customers mainly have access to vehicles with advanced assistance systems (SAE level 2+) that cannot yet drive autonomously. In this context, security problems and regulation are important topics, especially in Europe. The development of software for autonomous vehicles concerns many developers who take care of security and compliance with regulations.

Read more about this fascinating trend at Car News China , china daily and Statista .