Major Technical Glitch Leaves Multiple Baidu Robotaxis Stranded in Wuhan, Trapping Passengers

A still-unidentified technical failure left dozens of autonomous robotaxis owned by Chinese tech giant Baidu immobilized in the middle of active traffic this Tuesday, stranding some passengers inside the vehicles for more than an hour.

Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis across Wuhan, a major city in central China, and users on Chinese social media shared widespread accounts of the vehicles suddenly malfunctioning and grinding to an unexpected stop. Photos and videos posted online show the disabled Baidu vehicles halted on busy highways, many left blocking the fast lane.

A Wuhan-based college student, who requested only her last name He be used to protect her privacy, told WIRED she was trapped in a Baidu robotaxi with two friends for roughly 90 minutes that day. The student explained the vehicle malfunctioned and stopped four or five times over the course of their trip before finally parking permanently in front of an intersection in eastern Wuhan. Fortunately, the location was a low-traffic road, so the group faced no immediate danger.

Per a photo He shared with WIRED, the car’s onboard display instructed passengers to stay in the vehicle with their seatbelts fastened, and promised a company representative would arrive “in five minutes.” He says it took roughly 30 minutes just to connect with a Baidu customer service representative over the phone. “They kept saying they would report the issue to their superiors. But they never explained what caused the outage, or let us know how long we would have to wait for staff to arrive,” He said. No representative ever showed up, and after waiting another hour, the three passengers exited the unlocked vehicle on their own and headed home.

Other passengers took to Chinese social media to complain about being unable to reach Baidu’s support team. “I tried every method I could think of to call for help using the options the app listed, but the phone line would not connect, and when I pressed the SOS button it told me the service was unavailable. So what exactly is the SOS for?” one user wrote in a RedNote post, alongside a video showing the unresponsive button. She said she had to force the car door open to exit after all traffic behind her robotaxi came to a complete stop. “Apollo Go, you really owe me an apology,” she added.

Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident. Wuhan local police released a statement around midnight China time, noting the incident was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” though the outage remains under investigation. No injuries were reported, and all passengers have exited the affected vehicles, police confirmed.

It is still unclear how many Baidu robotaxis were impacted by the glitch. One dashcam recording posted to RedNote shows a driver passing 16 stationary Apollo Go vehicles along a single route over 90 minutes. The video captures multiple close calls, where the human driver had to brake sharply or change lanes at the last second to avoid hitting the stranded robotaxis.

Some drivers were not as lucky. In another RedNote post, a man claimed he crashed into one of the malfunctioning Baidu vehicles. He wrote he was driving over 40 mph on a highway when the car ahead of him suddenly swerved to avoid a stopped robotaxi. He could not react fast enough and collided with the self-driving car. Photos of his orange SUV being towed show the vehicle’s front-right fender was completely torn off, with major damage to other front-end components.

At least two more collisions were reported on the same day, per photos and videos shared on Chinese social media. A Wuhan-based RedNote user confirmed to WIRED she drove past a rear-end collision between a white minivan and a parked robotaxi. She said the back of the Baidu vehicle was badly damaged, but the two people at the scene appeared unharmed, and added she counted at least a dozen more stationary robotaxis along the same road.

Baidu is one of China’s leading autonomous vehicle developers. The company has launched commercial robotaxi services in more than a dozen Chinese cities to date, and recently began expanding internationally to locations including Seoul, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. In February, Baidu announced it had completed 20 million passenger rides covering more than 300 million kilometers (around 186 million miles). Wuhan has been one of the most open cities to Baidu’s fully autonomous vehicles, allowing the robotaxis to operate on public highways and offer trips to the city’s airport.