nuTonomy is probably not a name that rings a bell with everyone, but it is the first company to have launched operational self driving cabs.
Starting August 25th, select Singaporeans have had the privilege of taking free rides in these taxies with the help of their smartphone.
We did hear that Uber has been planning to launch autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, in a few weeks and there has also been numerous reports Google and Volvo have been testing such vehicles, but it looks nuTonomy, a 3-year-old autonomous vehicle software startup has beat them all to become the first in the world.
The service currently has 6 cars on the road and plans to expand to 12 by the end of this year. The company aims to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018. This will greatly reduce the number of cars in Singapore’s congested roads and might eventually lead to the model being adopted in cities around the world, said the company.
For now, the taxies only operate in the 2.5-square-mile business and residential district of one-north in Singapore, with pick-ups and drop-offs being limited to specified locations. Riders need to have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens of people have signed up for the launch and it wants to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months.
nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma says that the testing time-frame is open-ended. Eventually, riders will be required to pay to use that service and more pick-up and drop-off points will be added, said Iagnemma.
The cars, which are modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics, will have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. The vehicles will also have two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.
