Baidu Robotaxis Stranded Across Wuhan After Unexplained Technical Glitch, Leaving Passengers Trapped and Sparking Multiple Collisions

A still-unidentified technical failure left a fleet of self-driving robotaxis operated by Chinese tech giant Baidu frozen mid-traffic across Wuhan this Tuesday, trapping dozens of passengers inside the vehicles for more than an hour in multiple cases.

Wuhan, the major metropolitan hub in central China, is one of Baidu’s largest deployment sites for its Apollo Go autonomous taxi service, with hundreds of the driverless vehicles already active across the city. Local users on Chinese social media first shared accounts of the incident, reporting that the robotaxis suddenly malfunctioned and shut down unexpectedly mid-journey. Viral photos and clips circulating online show multiple Baidu vehicles halted on busy urban highways, many left idling in the fast lane and creating major unexpected traffic hazards.

A Wuhan-based college student who only shared her last name, He, with WIRED (to protect her privacy) recounted that she and two friends were trapped inside one disabled robotaxi for roughly 90 minutes that day. She explained the vehicle malfunctioned and stopped working four or five separate times over the course of their trip, before finally coming to a permanent stop in front of an intersection in eastern Wuhan. Fortunately, the vehicle stopped on a low-traffic side road, so the group faced no immediate danger. A photo He shared with WIRED shows the in-car display instructed passengers to remain seated with their seatbelts fastened, and promised a company representative would arrive “within five minutes.”

He says it took nearly 30 minutes to connect with a Baidu customer service representative over the phone. “They just kept repeating that they would report the issue to their supervisor,” He shared. “But they never explained what caused the outage, or gave us any estimate for how long we would have to wait for staff to arrive.” No Baidu employee ever showed up to the scene, and after waiting another hour, the three passengers exited the unlocked vehicle and made their own way home.

Other stranded passengers shared similar, frustrating accounts of unresponsive customer support on Chinese social media. “I tried every method the app offered to call for help, but the customer service line never connected, and when I pressed the in-car SOS button it just told me the feature was unavailable,” one user wrote in a RedNote (Xiaohongshu) post alongside a video showing the unresponsive SOS button. The user explained they had to force open the vehicle door to escape after their stranded robotaxi brought all traffic behind it to a complete standstill. “Apollo Go, you really owe me an apology,” they wrote.

Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident. Local Wuhan police released a statement around midnight China Standard Time noting the disruption was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” but the full investigation into the root cause is still ongoing. Police confirmed no injuries were reported across the incident, and all trapped passengers have exited the disabled vehicles. It remains unclear exactly how many Baidu robotaxis were impacted by the outage.

A dashcam recording posted to RedNote illustrates the full scale of the disruption: the video shows a driver passing 16 separate stranded Apollo Go vehicles parked along public roads over the course of a 90-minute drive. On multiple occasions, the recording captures the driver narrowly avoiding collisions with the stopped robotaxis, slamming on brakes or swerving lanes at the last second.

Not all drivers were able to avoid crashes, however. In another RedNote post, a driver claimed he collided with one of the disabled Baidu robotaxis. He wrote he was traveling at more than 40 mph on a highway when the car directly ahead of him suddenly swerved lanes to avoid the stopped autonomous vehicle. He did not have enough time to react, and crashed straight into the stationary robotaxi. Photos of the driver’s orange SUV being towed away confirm severe damage: the vehicle’s front-right fender was completely torn off, and other front-end components sustained major damage.

Social media posts confirm there were at least two additional collisions linked to the stranded robotaxis on the same day. A Wuhan-based RedNote user confirmed to WIRED that she passed the scene of a rear-end crash between a white minivan and a parked robotaxi. The back end of the Baidu autonomous vehicle was heavily damaged, but the two people standing at the scene did not appear to be injured, she said. She added that she counted at least a dozen more idle, stranded robotaxis along her route that day.

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 has recently begun expanding internationally to locations including Seoul, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. In February, Baidu announced it had completed a cumulative 20 million commercial robotaxi rides, covering a total distance of more than 300 million kilometers (roughly 186 million miles).

Wuhan has been one of the most progressive cities in China for allowing Baidu to operate fully autonomous vehicles on public roads. The city permits Baidu’s driverless robotaxis to run on public highways, and operate commercial trips to and from the city’s main airport.