‘System malfunction’ causes robot axle to crash in middle of road in China | Self-driving cars

A “system error” caused several self-driving robots to get stuck in the middle of the road Chinapolice confirmed, after distressed riders were stranded for hours.

Local authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said they began receiving calls “one after another” on Tuesday evening from riders reporting that autonomous vehicles operated by Chinese internet company Baidu had frozen.

“Several Apollo Go cars stopped in the middle of the road, unable to move,” police said in a statement Wednesday, referring to Baidu’s driverless taxi service. “After investigation, preliminary findings indicate that the cause was system malfunction.”

Baidu has a fleet of more than 500 driverless cars in Wuhan. The statement did not specify how many cars were involved in the system’s malfunction.

One rider, who recounted their 90-minute ordeal on Chinese social media platform RedNote, said their vehicle broke down on an elevated expressway in Wuhan at 9pm local time.

“I called robotaxi customer service but couldn’t get through at first. After calling repeatedly, everyone I called said they sent out a specialist,” the user said. “After 22:30 my order was cancelled, and I was stuck on the overpass with dump trucks around me.”

The rider was eventually rescued, but accused Apollo Go customer service agents of providing “useless platitudes” instead of “solutions to deal with such an emergency.”

Riders also uploaded footage of the incident to social media platforms, including one user who posted a video with the caption “Apollo Go, are you paralyzed?” of their unsuccessful attempts to reach the company from an in-car tablet.

This is not the first incident involving Baidu’s bots. Last December, authorities in the city of Zhuzhou suspended robotaxi operations after a Baidu-made autonomous vehicle ran over two pedestrians and put them in intensive care.

Baidu, China’s equivalent to Google, opened Apollo Go to the public in Beijing in late 2020 and is now operating in designated areas in several Chinese cities.

It provided 3.4 million driverless rides in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to company filings, with total rides up more than 200% compared to the same period in 2024.

More recently, it announced deals with ride-sharing apps Lyft and Uber to deploy its autonomous vehicles on their platforms as it looks to expand its presence abroad China.

Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.

Additional reporting by Yu-chen Li