The malfunction led to multiple crashes and clients being locked inside stopped vehicles.
It is the first time a mass shutdown of driverless taxis has been reported in China.
The system malfunction took place in Wuhan, China, at around 9pm on Tuesday (31 Mar).
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A message on the vehicle’s screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in five minutes.”
While many passengers were able to get out without incident, dozens of passengers were left locked inside for over an hour.
One person said it took half an hour just to connect to a company representative.
Over 100 Apollo Go vehicles, which use the Baidu Apollo autonomous driving platform, were reportedly affected by the centralised system malfunction.
Despite causing traffic chaos all over Wuhan, no injuries were reported.
Baidu, a Chinese internet and AI company that operates over 1,000 robotaxis in the country, has yet to comment on the mishap.
The cause of the malfunction is still under investigation.
The mass shutdown exposed the risks of over-reliance on centralised control systems for driverless vehicles.
It also raised national security concerns over the ability to hack an entire fleet of vehicles remotely.
Baidu is planning to expand its Apollo Go service to Europe.
They launched their driverless taxi service in Dubai and Abu Dhabi earlier this year, as reported by Need To Know.
Their self-driving car initiative uses four-seater cars fitted with 12 cameras, LiDAR, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and is capable of Level 4 autonomy.
In December 2025, a fleet of Waymo’s self-driving cars came to a stop in San Francisco, US, due to a power outage.
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