Mass robotaxi malfunction halts traffic in Chinese city

(BBC News) A mass robotaxi outage in the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least 100 self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic, sparking renewed debate around the safety of driverless vehicles.

Local police said initial findings suggested a “system malfunction” caused multiple vehicles to stop in the middle of the road on Tuesday.

Videos on social media have documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision, although police said no injuries had been reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely.

Baidu – which operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in dozens of cities across the world, mostly in China – did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to the police statement, posted on social media site Weibo, the cause of the incident is still under investigation.

In December 2025, ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft announced partnerships with the Chinese technology giant to test its Apollo Go cars on UK roads, aiming to start trials in 2026.

However, both still need approval from regulators before they can begin the pilot programs.

Jack Stilgoe, professor of science and technology policy at University College London said while driverless tech “may be safer on average” than human drivers, this incident showed it could “still go wrong in completely new ways”.

“If we are going to make good choices about this technology, we need to understand entirely new types of risk,” he told BBC News.

The outage is not the first time self-driving cars have faced technical difficulties.

In December 2025, a large power outage in San Francisco led Waymo taxis to stop working around the city, causing huge traffic jams.

In August 2025, an Apollo Go robotaxi carrying a passenger in Chongqing fell into a construction pit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge91r9j80o