Did Baidu really do better than Google’s Waymo in California’s self-driving report?

Chinese self-driving pioneer has a lower disengagement rate than the Google spinoff, but experts say the numbers don’t mean much

Baidu launched its robotaxi services in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, with a fleet of 45 cars on  September 26, 2019. (Picture: Baidu)
Last year in California, safety drivers in Waymo’s autonomous vehicles took over the wheel once every 13,000 miles. Baidu, on the other hand, recorded human intervention in its autonomous cars only once every 18,000 miles. That’s according to annual figures the companies submitted to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
In China, some media outlets were quick to latch on to the apparent triumph. Baidu, the country’s self-driving pioneer, has long been seen as lagging behind Waymo – the Google spinoff that’s often considered a global leader in autonomous driving. The disengagement rate is “one of the best measurements of how advanced a company’s self-driving program is,” claimed one Chinese news site.
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