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BaiduIn development

Baidu's Apollo Go and Freenow by Lyft Begin Road Testing in London

What happened

Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go, has begun road testing its vehicles in London in partnership with Freenow by Lyft, with plans to open the service to the public in 2027.

Source

Article excerpt

Highlighted: the sentence this signal was extracted from

BEIJING and LONDON, July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888) today announced that its autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go, has begun road testing in London with Freenow by Lyft. Testing will begin in the borough of Brent with safety operators on board, covering a mix of urban and suburban driving environments. Apollo Go and Freenow by Lyft plan to welcome public riders starting in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. The deployment builds on the strategic partnership announced by Baidu and Lyft in 2025 for Lyft to deploy Apollo Go autonomous vehicles across key European markets through the Lyft platform. Under the partnership, Apollo Go provides the RT6 vehicles and autonomous driving technology, while Freenow by Lyft contributes its local operational expertise to ensure smooth testing and operation of the fleet. The London program builds on Apollo Go's testing experience in Hong Kong, its first right-hand-drive market. On July 23, 2026, Apollo Go received the first fully driverless trial permit from Hong Kong's Transport Department, with testing beginning on Airport Island on July 27. This marks Hong Kong's first Level 4 autonomous trial on public roads without an on-board safety operator, and the first fully driverless trial in any right-hand-drive market globally. These milestones demonstrate the adaptability of Apollo Go's...

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Extracted by Autobound

From the Signal API record
Event
In development

What this signalsWork in development often leads to new buying for tools, data and services.

Product
Apollo Go
Takes effect
Jul 28, 2026
Location
London, England, United Kingdom

Companies

  • FreenowPartnerfree-now.com

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The full record

From the Signal API record

Topics and mentions

Product tags

  • online technology
  • future tech

Extraction

Confidence
95%
Detected
Jul 28, 2026
signal_type
news
signal_subtype
is_developing

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The API returns more than this page shows

This page shows a preview. The full news record in the Signal API and MCP can also have these 8 fields. Some fields are empty for some signals.

Company

  • linkedin_urlValue in the API
  • industriesValue in the API
  • employee_count_lowValue in the API
  • employee_count_highValue in the API
  • revenueValue in the API
  • descriptionValue in the API

Signal

  • signal_nameValue in the API
  • associationValue in the API
Show the full JSONThe record on this page and the API request

GET /v1/signals/39c2fb38-b837-062e-0e08-95b8ddb27058 returns this record as JSON. POST /v1/companies/enrich returns every signal for baidu.com.

{
  "signal_id": "39c2fb38-b837-062e-0e08-95b8ddb27058",
  "signal_type": "news",
  "signal_subtype": "is_developing",
  "detected_at": "2026-07-28T08:00:00+00:00",
  "company": {
    "name": "Baidu",
    "domain": "baidu.com"
  },
  "data": {
    "url": "https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/baidus-apollo-go-and-freenow-by-lyft-begin-road-testing-in-london-302836171.html",
    "title": "Baidu's Apollo Go and Freenow by Lyft Begin Road Testing in London",
    "excerpt": "BEIJING and LONDON , July 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888) today announced that its autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go, has begun road testing in London with Freenow by Lyft. Testing will begin in the borough of Brent with safety operators on board, covering a mix of urban and suburban driving environments. Apollo Go and Freenow by Lyft plan to welcome public riders starting in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. The deployment builds on the strategic partnership announced by Baidu and Lyft in 2025 for Lyft to deploy Apollo Go autonomous vehicles across key European markets through the Lyft platform. Under the partnership, Apollo Go provides the RT6 vehicles and autonomous driving technology, while Freenow by Lyft contributes its local operational expertise to ensure smooth testing and operation of the fleet. The London program builds on Apollo Go's testing experience in Hong Kong, its first right-hand-drive market. On July 23, 2026, Apollo Go received the first fully driverless trial permit from Hong Kong's Transport Department, with testing beginning on Airport Island on July 27. This marks Hong Kong's first Level 4 autonomous trial on public roads without an on-board safety operator, and the first fully driverless trial in any right-hand-drive market globally. These milestones demonstrate the adaptability of Apollo Go's...",
    "product": "Apollo Go",
    "summary": "Baidu's autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go, has begun road testing its vehicles in London in partnership with Freenow by Lyft, with plans to open the service to the public in 2027.",
    "location": "London, United Kingdom",
    "planning": true,
    "image_url": "https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/3008015/xiao.jpg?p=facebook",
    "confidence": 0.95,
    "product_data": {
      "name": "Apollo Go",
      "full_text": "autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go",
      "fuzzy_match": false
    },
    "product_tags": [
      "online_technology",
      "future_tech"
    ],
    "published_at": "2026-07-28T08:00:00Z",
    "location_data": [
      {
        "city": "London",
        "state": "England",
        "region": "Northern Europe",
        "country": "United Kingdom",
        "continent": "Europe",
        "fuzzy_match": false
      }
    ],
    "effective_date": "2026-07-28",
    "article_sentence": "Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU and HKEX: 9888) today announced that its autonomous ride-hailing platform, Apollo Go, has begun road testing in London with Freenow by Lyft.",
    "related_company_name": "Freenow",
    "related_company_domain": "free-now.com"
  }
}

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