He argued that self-driving has been questioned as an inevitable stage in the development of a new technology, but by its very nature has better safety.
Several traffic accidents so far this year have brought self-driving technology into question. In the opinion of a Baidu executive, it's cause for concern, but there's no need to get too nervous.
Wei Dong, vice president and chief safety operations officer of Baidu's intelligent driving business group, said in a Saturday post that the issue of self-driving safety has been a point of discussion, with some singing the praises and others the negatives.
He argued that this is a stage that new technology will inevitably face in its development, but by its very nature, autonomous driving offers better safety.
"To be sure, autonomous driving is far safer than human driving, but it's not 100 percent accident-free," Wei said.
Baidu was one of the first companies in China to get involved in autonomous driving, and its self-driving division Apollo is now rapidly advancing commercialization in the field and has released several driverless models with car companies.
Wei said Apollo will actively look at different voices and work on technology, operations, and data information to improve the safety of autonomous driving.
The unmanned vehicles built by Baidu Apollo and carmakers including BAIC's electric car brands Arcfox, GAC, and WM Motor are designed for maximum system adaptation for specific models, he said, adding that they can ensure product consistency and safe operation based on meeting Baidu's unified technical standards.
Baidu's autonomous driving system is designed at the beginning with a set of safety requirements at all levels, including the vehicle, autonomous driving system, software and hardware, and tested in different scenarios to verify that the autonomous driving system meets the safety requirements, he said.
Baidu has established a comprehensive safety mechanism to ensure safety first through safety redundancy and the accumulation of a large number of road tests, according to Wei.
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