beijing chinas baidu inc is considering making its own electric vehicles and has held talks with automakers about the possibility said three people with knowledge of the matter the latest move in a race among tech firms to develop smart cars the search engine leader which also develops autonomous driving technology and internet connectivity infrastructure is considering contract manufacturing one of the people said or creating a majorityowned venture with automakers the initiative would be a step up from internet peers such as tencent holdings ltd amazoncom inc and alphabet inc which have also developed autorelated technology or invested in smartcar startups advt baidu has held preliminary talks without reaching any decisions with automakers including zhejiang geely holding group co ltd guangzhou automobile group co ltd and china faw group corp ltds hongqi on a possible venture the people said declining to be identified as the talks were private baidu declined to comment gac said it has a strategic partnership with baidu and that any further cooperation is subject to discussion geely said it was not familiar with the matter faw did not respond to a request for comment baidu established autonomous driving unit apollo in 2017 the unit mainly supplies technology powered by artificial intelligence and work with automakers such as geely volkswagen ag toyota motor corp and ford motor co baidu operates autonomous taxi service go robotaxi with safety drivers on board in beijing changsha and cangzhou and plans to expand to 30 cities in three years it gained approval last week to test five cars in beijing without safety drivers its talks regarding manufacturing come after didi chuxing last month launched a purposebuilt van for ridehailing services with automaker byd co ltd meanwhile tech giant sony corp in january unveiled an electric concept car with selfdriving functions building cars would represent a dramatic development in baidus push to diversify income streams as growth plateaus in its core search business where revenue grew just 2 last year reuters published on dec 15 2020 at 1125 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etauto app get realtime updates save your favourite articles scan to download app toyota motor corp sony corp apollo ford motor co guangzhou automobile group co ltd homenewsindustrychina search giant baidu considers making own electric vehicles sources