(Beijing) – Baidu Inc. says it will start giving the public the chance to ride in driverless cars within three years and begin mass production of the autos within five years, after a recent test in the capital proved successful.

The Internet search company made the announcement on December 14 as it unveiled plans for developing self-driving vehicles, which includes launching a dedicated business unit.

Lin Yuanqing, who was named deputy general manager of that unit, said Baidu will start running driverless cars on fixed routes in several big cities so the public could get familiar with them. The autos would be advanced enough to handle roads in rain and snow, he said.

Baidu recently announced that a test of a self-driving vehicle was a success. It said that on December 8 a driverless car carrying one passenger traveled the 30 kilometer r trip from its headquarters in the Zhongguancun tech area to the Olympic Forest Park on major roads.

Baidu launched its driverless car project, which it says uses its map, data processing and artificial intelligence technologies, in 2013. The search engine company also provides Net users with desktop and mobile application map services.

Baidu's self-driving car project is similar to that of the U.S. search giant Google Inc., which entered the field in 2009. Google has run dozens of tests on U.S. roads in recent years.

Both companies are cooperating with automakers in their projects. Google is working with Toyota, Audi and Lexus, and Baidu is cooperating with BMW, whose 3-Series model was used in the test on Beijing's roads.

Other automakers, such as Tesla Motors, also have plans to develop self-driving cars and autos linked to the Net. Those plans are slightly different than the efforts of Baidu and Google in that the automakers are adding functions such as computer-assisted driving to their models to see how consumers respond.

Companies may have a ways to go before the public embraces the new form of transportation, if the results of a survey this year by Boston Consulting Group and the World Economic Forum are any indication. Only 16 percent of 5,500 respondents from 10 countries said they trusted driverless cars.

Li Deyi, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and head of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, said that high costs are another barrier for consumers.

The laser radar, or lidar, technology that Baidu uses to help its driverless car avoid obstacles costs hundreds of thousands of yuan, which is more than the price of some cars, he said.

"For 200,000 I would buy a car and hire a driver," he said.

(Rewritten by Guo Kai)