A mass robotaxi outage in the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least a hundred self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic, sparking renewed debate around the safety of driverless vehicles.
Local police stated that initial findings suggested a system malfunction caused multiple vehicles to halt in the middle of the road on Tuesday. Videos on social media documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police asserted that no injuries had been reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely.
Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the police confirmed that the cause of the incident is still under further investigation. The technology firm operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in numerous cities across the globe, predominantly in China. In December 2025, ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft announced partnerships with Baidu to test its Apollo Go cars on UK roads, although they still require regulatory approval to commence the pilot programs.
While the technology is often pitched as being safer than human drivers, this incident illustrated that it could still go wrong in completely new ways, according to Jack Stilgoe, a professor of science and technology policy at University College London. He emphasized the importance of understanding entirely new types of risk associated with such technology.
This outage follows other instances of self-driving vehicles encountering technical difficulties, including a significant power outage that affected Waymo taxis in San Francisco in December 2025, causing major traffic jams. Additionally, an Apollo Go robotaxi in Chongqing fell into a construction pit in August 2025.
Local police stated that initial findings suggested a system malfunction caused multiple vehicles to halt in the middle of the road on Tuesday. Videos on social media documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police asserted that no injuries had been reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely.
Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the police confirmed that the cause of the incident is still under further investigation. The technology firm operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in numerous cities across the globe, predominantly in China. In December 2025, ride-sharing giants Uber and Lyft announced partnerships with Baidu to test its Apollo Go cars on UK roads, although they still require regulatory approval to commence the pilot programs.
While the technology is often pitched as being safer than human drivers, this incident illustrated that it could still go wrong in completely new ways, according to Jack Stilgoe, a professor of science and technology policy at University College London. He emphasized the importance of understanding entirely new types of risk associated with such technology.
This outage follows other instances of self-driving vehicles encountering technical difficulties, including a significant power outage that affected Waymo taxis in San Francisco in December 2025, causing major traffic jams. Additionally, an Apollo Go robotaxi in Chongqing fell into a construction pit in August 2025.
