Baidu and Waymo race to crack right-hand-drive robotaxis in Hong Kong and London
新智元 · wechat · 2026-07-29
The post argues that the key Robotaxi race is no longer about proving autonomy, but about removing the safety driver and scaling into right-hand-drive markets.
Main points
- Hong Kong became the first place in the right-hand-drive world to begin public-road fully driverless testing, after Baidu’s Apollo Go received approval to run without a safety driver on Hong Kong Island.
- London is emerging as the next major battleground, with the UK moving its robotaxi commercialization timeline up to spring 2026.
- Two major players are converging there: Waymo, fresh off a $16B round at a $126B valuation, and Apollo Go, which is expanding from its China base.
- The right-hand-drive market covers 70+ countries and regions and more than 2 billion people, yet has had essentially zero fully driverless deployment until now.
Why it matters
The article frames right-hand-drive autonomy as the next hard frontier: technically, operationally, and regulatorily more complex than left-hand-drive markets, but commercially crucial because it opens roughly a third of the global mobility market.
Related event: Baidu Apollo Go Gets First Right-Hand Drive Fully Driverless Permit(2 posts)→
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