A mass robotaxi outage in the Chinese city of Wuhan caused at least a hundred self-driving cars to stop mid-traffic, sparking renewed debate around the safety of driverless vehicles. Local police said initial findings suggested a system malfunction caused multiple vehicles to stop in the middle of the road on Tuesday. Videos on social media documented the outage, with one appearing to show it resulting in a highway collision; however, police confirmed that no injuries were reported and passengers exited their vehicles safely. Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to a police statement posted on social media, the cause of the incident is still under investigation. Baidu operates its Apollo Go driverless taxi service in dozens of cities primarily in China. In December 2025, ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft announced partnerships with the Chinese technology giant to test its Apollo Go cars on UK roads, aiming to start trials in 2026, although regulatory approval is still needed. Expert Jack Stilgoe from University College London pointed out that while driverless technology may be statistically safer than human driving, incidents like this demonstrate that new types of risks need to be understood. This outage is not an isolated incident; similar issues have plagued autonomous vehicle services before, including a power outage in San Francisco in December 2025, which left Waymo taxis stranded throughout the city.