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Small Business Growth

Baidu reports slower growth in robotaxi rides [Video]

Chinese tech company Baidu announced Monday it can sell some robotaxi rides without any human staff in the vehicles.

Baidu

BEIJING — Chinese tech company Baidu is reporting slower growth in its Apollo Go robotaxi rides than in prior quarters.

Figures Baidu reported Thursday showed the number of robotaxi rides operated publicly grew by 26% year-on-year in the first half of the year to a monthly average of 287,500 rides, according to CNBC calculations.

That’s down sharply from year-on-year growth of 184% in the first half of 2023, for a monthly average of 229,000 rides.

Some of the cars still require a safety driver and are not fully autonomous.

Baidu is one of the major operators of public-facing robotaxis in China, where regulators in parts of Beijing and cities such as Wuhan — Apollo Go’s largest operating region — have allowed the companies to collect fares.

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Trump names Brendan Carr, senior GOP leader at FCC, to lead the agency [Video]

President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, as the new chairman of the agency tasked with regulating broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband.Carr is a longtime member of the commission and served previously as the FCC's general counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Trump and President Joe Biden to the commission.The FCC is an independent agency that is overseen by Congress, but Trump has suggested he wanted to bring it under tighter White House control, in part to use the agency to punish TV networks that cover him in a way he doesnt like.Carr has of late embraced Trump's ideas about social media and tech. Carr wrote a section devoted to the FCC in Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint for gutting the federal workforce and dismantling federal agencies in a second Trump administration produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation.Trump has claimed he doesnt know anything about Project 2025, but many of its themes have aligned with his statements.Carr said in a statement congratulating Trump on his win that he believed "the FCC will have an important role to play reining in Big Tech, ensuring that broadcasters operate in the public interest, and unleashing economic growth.Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans Freedoms, and held back our Economy, Trump said in a statement on Sunday. He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling Americas Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America.The five-person commission has a 3-2 Democratic majority until next year, when Trump gets to appoint a new member.Carr has made appearances on Fox News Channel, including when he slammed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris appearance on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the election charging that the network didnt offer equal time to Trump.Also a prolific writer of op-eds, Carr wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal last month decrying an FCC decision to revoke a federal award for Elon Musks satellite service, Starlink. He said the move couldnt be explained "by any objective application of the facts, the law or sound policy.In my view, it amounted to nothing more than regulatory lawfare against one of the lefts top targets: Mr. Musk, Carr wrote.