On a Tuesday evening in Wuhan, more than 100 Apollo Go robotaxis from Baidu became immobilized. They didn’t move to the side or activate any emergency protocols, but were motionless, scattered across roads and highways. Some passengers trapped inside called the police. Videos on Weibo showed these vehicles stuck at intersections with hazard lights on. One video suggested a highway collision resulted from this, though Wuhan police reported no injuries and that all passengers safely exited.
Wuhan traffic police, through a Weibo statement, indicated a “system malfunction” as the preliminary cause for the sudden halt of these vehicles, which is still under investigation. Baidu hasn’t responded to media inquiries for comments.
Wuhan hosts the largest Apollo Go fleet deployment in China, with over 1,000 driverless vehicles in operation. According to Baidu’s latest earnings report, Apollo Go services are available in 26 cities globally, surpassing 20 million cumulative orders. In Q4 2025 alone, 3.4 million fully driverless rides were delivered, with peak weeks seeing over 300,000 rides. This is a large-scale commercial operation, making the mass failure in one city significantly more concerning than a solitary incident.
Jack Stilgoe, a professor at University College London, remarked to BBC News that while driverless technology may generally be safer than human drivers, incidents like this reveal potential for new failure modes. Human driver errors result in isolated hazards, whereas a system failure in such technologies can cause widespread issues.
This Wuhan incident is part of a trend in robotaxi mishaps during the industry’s growth. In December 2025, a power outage in San Francisco disabled traffic lights, leading to Waymo’s robotaxis clogging streets. In August 2025, an Apollo Go vehicle in Chongqing drove into a construction pit, spotlighting challenges autonomous systems face in detecting unusual road conditions.
The Wuhan malfunction is ill-timed for Baidu as both Uber and Lyft, partnering with Baidu, have announced plans to introduce Apollo Go vehicles in the UK, with trials initially in London. Uber plans to start with Apollo Go RT6 vehicles by mid-2026, while Lyft will begin with 50 vehicles. Regulatory approval is pending, and the situation in Wuhan may slow these discussions.
Apollo Go has also launched services in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. However, a major failure in one of its primary operations prompts concerns about both the service’s viability and public acceptance.
The core issue lies in the risk associated with centrally managed autonomous fleets. With such systems, correlated failures can occur, affecting many vehicles simultaneously, posing a unique transport challenge.
Regulators are closely observing. Tesla faces scrutiny in the US over robotaxi performance, fueling ongoing industry debates about the future of the robotaxi model. Waymo employs remote safety drivers, whereas Baidu operates fully driverless vehicles. Technical failures in such systems challenge existing regulatory frameworks not designed for fleet-wide simultaneous errors.
The Wuhan incident indicates it’s not about whether the technology is effective, but if regulatory, deployment, and recovery systems can match the rapid global rollout pace.