Passengers in Wuhan, China, were left stranded in the middle of busy streets after a large group of self-driving taxis stopped working at the same time.
A mass outage involving at least 100 robotaxis caused the vehicles to halt mid-traffic on Tuesday evening, with authorities later attributing the disruption to a “system malfunction.” Officials did not provide further details, and no injuries were reported, per the Associated Press.
Videos circulating on social media showed driverless cars sitting motionless in active roadways, some blocking lanes and intersections. In one clip, a crash involving a stopped vehicle could be seen, though the BBC reported there were no injuries and that passengers were able to exit the vehicles safely.
The vehicles are operated by Apollo Go, an autonomous ride-hailing service run by Chinese tech company Baidu. The company has been expanding its robotaxi operations across China and has plans to grow internationally, according to CNBC.
For passengers inside the cars, the experience was both confusing and unsettling.
According to the Associated Press, one passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped shortly after turning a corner. A message displayed on the vehicle’s screen read, “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” When no one arrived, the passenger pressed an SOS button and was again told that help was on the way. The rider was ultimately able to open the door and exit the vehicle on their own.
The Wuhan incident comes amid a series of recent issues involving self-driving vehicles, both in the United States and abroad.
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