Up to 200 robotaxis broke down on a major motorway in China, trapping countless passengers.
A ‘system malfunction’ caused the driverless cabs to stop along three major roads in Wuhan, a large city in central China, on Tuesday.
Videos posted on the Chinese social media network Weibo show riders screaming for help inside dozens of vehicles with blinking headlights.
One photograph showed the tax in the road that appears to have been hit by an orange and badly damaged truck.
Another customer could do nothing as trucks roared past them; their car stopped in the slowest lane of an expressway.
One rider stranded for one hour said on the Chinese TikTok rival Xiaohongshu that the SOS button and onboard help were ‘useless’.
‘I called their customer service number nearly 20 times from my own phone and still couldn’t get through,’ the user, Luka, said, with a video showing the button not working.
‘Is there any way to file a complaint? I’m speechless.’
She added in a second video that customer service representatives offered her a 50% coupon as compensation.
One dashcam recording posted to Rednote shows a car passing 16 autonomous vehicles parked on the road in only 90 minutes.
The glitched cars were part of Apollo Go, a self-driving ride-hailing scheme run in Wuhan by the Chinese internet company Biado.
One police officer told local media that between 100 and 200 robotaxis stalled, which is a ‘common problem’ with Apollo Go cars.
The officer added: ‘Passengers can press a button and the door can open, but they can’t get off or get off the ring road. We saved many people today.’
Police have not revealed what caused the malfunctions along the Second and Third Ring Roads and the Baishazhou Bridge at 8.57pm.
No one was injured and all passengers have exited the vehicles.
The police added: ‘Following established contingency plans, the public security traffic control and transportation departments quickly mobilised forces to the scene to dispose of the situation in coordination with Apollo Go company staff.’
Baidu has been approached for comment.
The incident comes as many cities across the world embrace cars with self-driving technology, including in London.
But these trials haven’t been without speed bumps. Passengers of self-driving Waymo cars in San Francisco say that their trips have been cut short because of vandals or those opposed to robot cars.
In 2024, a man covered the sensors of the robotaxi that had stopped. The cars stop moving when a person is nearby as a safety precaution.
Other passengers say they have become trapped inside while their cab is being tagged by graffiti artists or when a man asked for her phone number.
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