Baidu is taking on Google with its own self-driving car

Baidu is often referred to as “China’s Google,” but it’s not quite the same. It’s true, the company is working on it’s own self-driving car, but it thinks Google’s no-wheel design is all wrong. According to Kai Yu, Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning’s deputy director, autonomous vehicles need to be more like horses than robots. “A car should not totally replace the driver but should really give the driver freedom,” Yu told TheNextWeb. “Freedom means the car is intelligent enough to operate by itself, like horse, and make decisions under different road situations.”

Google took the wraps off its self-driving cars in May, and now Baidu — commonly known as China’s Google — has also revealed that it is working on a similar project. Kai Yu, Baidu’s deputy director of its Institute of Deep Learning, told TNW in an interview that the company doesn’t view it as a driverless car, as he still envisions a driver being in control. “This is actually an intelligent assistant collecting data from road situations and then operating locally… We don’t call this a driverless car. I think a car should be helping people, not replacing people, so we call this a highly autonomous car,” Yu told us. Technically, however, the car can actually operate without the driver controlling it under certain situations. “Philosophically we have a fundamental difference to look at this type of things. I think in the future, a car should not totally replace the driver but should really give the driver freedom. Freedom means the car is intelligent enough to operate by itself, like a horse, and make decisions under different road situations.Whenever the driver wants to resume control, you can do that. It’s like riding on a horse, rather than just sitting in a car where you only have a button.”