Apollo Go's Wuhan Freeze Is the AV Safety Case Europe Needed

At 20:57 on March 31, at least 100 fully driverless robotaxis simultaneously stalled across Wuhan's roads and elevated expressways, trapping passengers for up to two hours with broken SOS systems. No one was hurt — but the incident exposed every hard question European regulators have been quietly deferring. Here is what European founders, insurers, and policymakers should take from it before their own frameworks lock in.

What happened in China At 20:57 on March 31, 2026, something went wrong inside Baidu's Apollo Go fleet all at once. Multiple fully driverless robotaxis came to a complete standstill on major roads and elevated expressways across Wuhan — some stopped in fast lanes, some in the centre of raised motorways, blocking traffic in one of China's most AV-saturated cities. According to a traffic police officer cited by Shanghai-based outlet The Paper, at least 100 vehicles were affected. Passengers were locked inside. The in-car SOS buttons failed. Customer service hotlines were reportedly unresponsive. The longest wait time reached nearly two hours. The Wuhan Municipal Public Security Bureau's Traffic Management Bureau issued a police report confirming a system malfunction was to blame. No injuries or fatalities were reported — but that outcome owed more to fortune than design. The timing makes this incident impossible to dismiss as a fringe edge…

Apollo Go's Wuhan Freeze Is the AV Safety Case Europe Needed

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