VW taps Baidu's Apollo platform to develop self-driving cars in China
The news comes as Volkswagen explores a broad based partnership with Ford to develop electric and autonomous cars.
Volkswagen on Friday said it would join China’s Apollo autonomous driving consortium, which was founded by Baidu, as it seeks to develop self-driving cars for the world’s largest market.
Baidu last year opened the Apollo consortium, which uses an open-source approach, to third parties to accelerate development of autonomous vehicles in the face of stiff competition from Google’s Waymo and US carmaker Tesla.
Volkswagen will gain a seat on the management board of Apollo, the carmaker said.
Apollo has brought in more than 130 partners, including Germany’s BMW, and announced plans to begin testing self-driving cars with Ford by the end of this year.
The news comes as Volkswagen explores a broad based partnership with Ford to develop electric and autonomous cars.