Baidu's core search business has not shown much revenue growth in the past year hence the firm is eyeing a chunk of the EV market.
According to multiple media sources, Baidu Inc. is considering making its own electric vehicles and has held talks with automakers such as Geely, GAC and FAW on a possible venture.
When asked about this project, all three companies above either declined to comment or said that cooperation is subject to discussion.
According to CNBC, its talks regarding manufacturing come after Didi Chuxing last month launched a purpose-built van for ride-hailing services with automaker BYD Co. Meanwhile, tech giant Sony in January unveiled an electric concept car with self-driving functions.
Just like its peers, Baidu has been working on an autonomous driving unit – Apollo – for a while now, but this would put Baidu a step ahead of them. It operates an autonomous taxi service in Beijing and a couple of other cities in China and plans to expand to 30 cities in three years.
The search engine giant has been looking to expand its revenue streams over the years, investing in various fields like cloud computing, AI education, AI platforms, chipsets and data centers.
Building cars will surely become one of the most important businesses for Baidu as the market is still relatively new and the competition is starting to build with Tesla, NIO, Xpeng, Li auto and other ICE giants introducing EVs into the market.