Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing says it plans to operate over 1,000,000 self-driving vehicles by the end of this decade.
The robotaxis are to be deployed in places where ride-hailing drivers are less available, as stated by Meng Xing, Didi’s chief operating officer.
Mr Meng was speaking at a online conference hosted by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper.
One analyst suggested it had been a very ambitious goal.
“I’ll be surprised if we see a million by 2030,” a spokesman for market research firm Canalys said.
“I hope that happens but there’s a lot to take place in meantime.”
He distinguished that it absolutely was a weird time for such a commitment, provided the disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2016, US tech giant Apple ploughed $1bn (£800m) into Didi in a strangely large and public investment.
Apple is thought to have an interest within the development of autonomous driving, having tested its own driverless vehicle on public roads in California in the last few years.
However, there was no reason to think that Apple’s autonomous driving research would expand as a results of Didi’s add the realm, Canalys suggested.
Recently, Didi signed an agreement with Chinese carmaker BAIC Group to jointly develop customized self-driving vehicles, and in May the firm received from Softbank a $500m investment in its autonomous vehicles division.
