China’s Baidu Touts World’s First Autonomous Car Rentals

China’s Baidu has launched what it calls the world’s first autonomous car rental service.

The launch was announced Tuesday (July 8) by the tech company’s autonomous driving division Apollo in collaboration with CAR Inc., a Chinese car rental service.

“Built on Baidu Apollo’s Level 4 autonomous driving platform, the service is closely integrated with CAR Inc.’s nationwide rental network and fleet operations,” the companies said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“It is the first rental service offering in China to combine fully autonomous driving with a completely self-service process.”

According to the release, the service lets users 18 and up book, unlock and return a self-driving vehicle entirely without human assistance, using the CAR Inc. mobile app.

“The launch underscores the growing momentum in China’s autonomous mobility sector,” the release added.

“Autonomous rental services are seen as particularly promising due to their ease of use and flexibility, appealing to both urban users and tourists, and providing a transportation option for those who are unable or find it inconvenient to drive, including the elderly, unlicensed individuals, international visitors, and people with disabilities.”

The launch comes as U.S. regulators say they are streamlining an exemption process to boost the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

That move by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is centered on the Part 555 exemption process.

This lets manufacturers sell as many as 2,500 vehicles per year that do not fully comply with federal safety standards if manufacturers show that the vehicles are as safe as compliant vehicles and that the exemption is in the public interest.

The process permits exemptions for vehicles that, for example, lack steering wheels, driver-operated brakes or rearview mirrors.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS reported earlier this year on comments from Jesse Levinson, co-founder and CTO at Zoox, Amazon’s robotaxi subsidiary, about the difficulty of getting autonomous driving projects off the ground.

The problem is somewhat self-inflicted, he said at the HumanX conference in Las Vegas. For example, Zoox chose to rework the traditional car by removing the steering wheel and braking and acceleration pedals, which became the source of intense internal debate.

“A lot of really good engineers wanted to put a steering wheel and pedals in the robotaxi and keep that for a while until we can show that we don’t need to disengage very often,” Levinson said. “It was like a little bit of a comfort blanket kind of a situation.”