Autonomous vehicle platform Baidu Apollo Go has launched on-road robotaxi trials in London, partnering simultaneously with Uber and Freenow, a subsidiary of Lyft. The expansion follows a major milestone in Hong Kong, where the company secured the city’s first fully driverless permit for a right-hand drive market, according to company disclosures and transport authorities.
London Road Trials and Partnerships With Uber and Freenow
Testing in the British capital is underway in the west and northwest London district of Brent using Baidu’s sixth-generation Apollo Go RT6 robotaxi. According to company statements, the initial phase includes a safety operator on board while vehicles navigate both urban and suburban routes to evaluate performance across varying traffic conditions. Baidu and Freenow note that a public-facing commercial service will not launch before 2027, pending regulatory authorization from British transport officials.
The deployments stem from two separate partnership agreements established in 2025. The collaboration with Lyft, operating through Freenow, aims to deploy thousands of Apollo Go vehicles across major European markets. Simultaneously, an agreement with Uber integrates thousands of robotaxis onto Uber’s ride-hailing platform in international markets outside the United States and mainland China. Uber has invested over 8,6 miliardi di euro in building robotaxi partnerships rather than developing proprietary autonomous vehicle technology.
First Driverless Right-Hand Drive Trials in Hong Kong
The technical deployment in Hong Kong advanced significantly when the Hong Kong Transport Department issued Apollo Go its first permit for fully driverless testing on July 23, with road trials beginning July 27 on Airport Island. Transport Commissioner Winnie Tse characterized the authorization as an important step toward large-scale, commercially sustainable autonomous vehicle operations.
Operating without a safety driver on board, the Level 4 trials cover Airport Island, North Lantau, Kowloon East, and Hong Kong Island South. According to Transport Department observations during the initial testing phase, the vehicles successfully yielded to pedestrians, obeyed traffic signals, and navigated heavy rain, roundabouts, and priority junctions. Baidu reports that the fleet has accumulated more than 240,000 km of testing in Hong Kong since receiving its initial experimental license in November 2024, data that informs development for other right-hand drive markets including the United Kingdom.
Global Fleet Scale and Commercial Expansion
Baidu maintains an active international footprint spanning China, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with Kazakhstan under evaluation following a memorandum of understanding signed with Freedom Holding during the WAIC conference. In left-hand drive markets, Apollo Go operates fully driverless commercial services in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, alongside a Level 4 authorization in eastern Switzerland under the AmiGo brand.
Operational scale metrics released by the company show that Apollo Go surpassed 22 milioni di corse total rides by April 2026. During the first quarter of 2026, the service completed 3,2 milioni di corse fully driverless trips, marking a 120 percent increase year-over-year. By May, cumulative autonomous mileage exceeded 330 million km, with more than 220 million of those km driven completely without a safety operator on board.