China's Baidu company is making headway in its quest to put driverless vehicles out on the roads. Its prototype BMW-model driverless car successfully traveled an 18-mile-plus route under mixed road conditions (no details on that). Now this might seem modest by Google car standards, for example, but (1) there seems to be significant money behind the Baidu program, and (2) once the prototype and the mapping, etc., are in place, early success, in my opinion, belongs to the fastest company that actually sells lots of driverless vehicles (assuming safe road trips). China does not have as complicated or as messily democratic a system of laws and regulations, so the process for legal acceptance of this new mode might well be quicker than in the United States or in Europe.
Not incremental or go for broke
Baidu is taking an approach that differs from both the step-by-step efforts of conventional car companies (and Tesla) and the Google (and Uber and Apple?) strategy of creating a completely driverless, commercially viable vehicle. Baidu's third way is to create vehicles that can handle particular driving environments, such as a particular route - for example, a public bus route. Baidu is relying on extremely detailed mapping, including street signs, as well as "seeing" temporary obstacles, including pedestrians.
P.S. I hope there are no Chinese teenagers who sometimes deface or remove street signs that those rational driverless vehicles are created to read as they travel along. Unexpected consequences and all that.
P.P.S. I admit, post-teenage years, having removed one July 4th sign per child, for their college rooms.
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