China Suspends Autonomous Driving Permits After Baidu Outage, Bloomberg Reports

China has suspended issuing new licenses for autonomous vehicles, according to people familiar with the matter, after dozens of Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxis suddenly stopped in Wuhan last month, stranding passengers and disrupting traffic, Bloomberg reported.

Baidu shares both dropped more than 2% in Hong Kong and US overnight trading.

The incident alarmed authorities, and three agencies including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology convened a meeting earlier this month with officials from cities that have robotaxis or autonomous-driving pilots, the people said. Regulators called for local governments to conduct a full self-review and enhance safety monitoring to prevent similar incidents, said the people.

The suspension of new licenses prevents self-driving companies from adding new robotaxis to their fleets, starting a new test project or expanding to a new city, the people said. It’s not clear how long the suspension will last, the people said.