Singapore Is Now Home To The World's First Driverless Taxi
nuTonomy has beaten Google and Uber to it.
By John Lim — 26 Aug 2016, 10:47 AM
It looks like the future is here! The world's first driverless taxi has begun trial sessions operating in Singapore on Thursday, 25 August.
The project was part of an ongoing trial by nuTonomy, an automobile startup which was founded by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers now based in Singapore.
Being the first to offer public trials of driverless taxis, the startup has beaten tech giants like Google and Uber.
Currently, the taxis are being tested in a regulated research campus well away from business hubs
Data from the trials will feed into the roll-out of driverless taxis across the city-state in 2018, said nuTonomy.
"The trial represents an extraordinary opportunity to collect feedback from riders in a real-world setting," said nuTonomy chief executive and co-founder Karl Iagnemma.
The six taxis - Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric vehicles - will operate in a 6km radius, picking up and dropping off passengers at the same time
At the moment, the service is open to a selected group of people. Although the taxis operate driverless, each journey is accompanied by a nuTonomy engineer who will observe how the machine performs and be ready to take over in the event of a problem.
The lucky few would have to use the startup's dedicated smartphone app to call for the taxis. nuTonomy is hoping to open up trials sessions to more people in the country.
The fleet of driverless taxis will eventually expand to 75 by 2018.
Ride-sharing giant Uber is planning to have driverless taxis out by August this year while Google has partnered with Fiat to produce self-driving vehicles, which will hit the road by the end of this year
