Posted on the 2nd April 2026 in PHTM News

SYSTEM MALFUNCTION LEAVES ROBOTAXI PASSENGERS TRAPPED IN HIGH SPEED TRAFFIC IN WUHAN

A massive technical failure in China has left dozens of passengers stranded in the middle of busy highways after a fleet of self-driving "robotaxis" suddenly froze.

Police in the city of Wuhan confirmed that a “system malfunction” caused more than 100 vehicles operated by the tech giant Baidu to come to a halt on Tuesday 31 March, marking the first reported mass shutdown of autonomous cars in the country.

Terrified passengers found themselves stuck in the fast lanes of elevated ring roads with traffic racing past on both sides.

One college student, identified only as Ms. He, reported being trapped with friends for 90 minutes. She noted that while the car’s internal screen told them to stay buckled up and wait for help: “no one ever came, and after another hour of waiting, the three passengers decided to just get out and go home.” 

Others expressed anger on social media after finding emergency features failed, with one user asking: “I pressed the SOS button it told me it was unavailable. So then what exactly is the SOS for?”

The outage created chaos for human drivers, leading to several high-speed collisions. One motorist, whose vehicle was destroyed after hitting a stationary robotaxi at 40 mph, explained that the car in front of him swerved at the last second, leaving him no time to react.

Another witness recorded a dashcam video showing 16 different stalled vehicles scattered across the road in a single trip.

While no injuries were reported, the incident has raised serious questions about the safety of driverless technology as Baidu’s "Apollo Go" service prepares to expand into Britain and Switzerland.

Despite the warnings on vehicle screens that “Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes,” many passengers were forced to risk their lives by stepping out into moving traffic to escape the malfunctioning cars.

Baidu has not yet commented on the cause of the failure.


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