Baidu announced Thursday that it has launched a pilot robotaxi service in Shenzhen, offering free rides to the public in the city’s downtown Nanshan District. Riders can use its autonomous ride-hailing app “Luobo Kuaipao” to hail a cab at approximately 50 stations from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The company plans to increase the number of pickup and drop-off locations to 300 by the end of this year. The Chinese search engine giant is now trialing its self-driving taxi service in seven domestic cities with its testing fleet logging 21 million kilometers (13 million miles) since its inception. [Baidu release]