Baidu today announced plans for a comprehensive self-driving taxi and bus service in Changsha, the capital of southern Hunan province and birthplace of Mao Zedong. Baidu has signed a partnership agreement with the Changsha Municipal People’s Government and Hunan Xiangjiang New Area Development Group that aims to reinvent the local commute.

Baidu — Changsha signing ceremony

The Chinese search engine giant will deploy a fleet of 100 autonomous vehicles in designated areas and public roads in 2019. The fleet will be powered by Baidu’s homegrown open-source Apollo platform. Billed as “the Android of Auto”, Apollo provides hardware and software support to enable L4 autonomous driving.

Residents will also be able to catch a ride in a geofenced area of the city on Baidu’s L4 autonomous bus Apolong (阿波龙) — a joint effort between Baidu and Fujian-based bus manufacturer King Long. Baidu announced Apolong mass production at its developer conference this July.

The Baidu-Changsha partnership has the ambitious goal of reshaping the city’s transport infrastructure. Baidu promises a complete vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication system comprising sensor networks, perception capabilities, and a smart cloud control solution.

Secretary of the Changsha Municipal Party Committee Henghua Hu welcomed the program: “The era of artificial intelligence is accelerating. Whoever seizes this opportunity, develops high-quality technology, and transforms this into new kinetic energy can win the initiative.”

Autonomous vehicles are moving quickly from the tech and design space into commercialization. Bloomberg recently revealed that Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo has begun testing pricing models for its ride-hailing service in Phoenix.