Vay, a German remote-driving company, announced Wednesday the debut of its first commercial service in Las Vegas, in which a “teledriver,” or remote driver, delivers electric short-term rental vehicles to consumers and collects them after the rental.
The service is now accessible around the University of Nevada Las Vegas and the city’s arts sector, renting out automobiles by the minute. Unlike self-driving cars, it requires a remote human driver.
Vay CEO Thomas von der Ohe told Reuters that the company’s vehicle fleet should be in the “low double digits” during the first quarter.
Vay has collected over $110 million from investors including Sweden’s Kinnevik, Coatue, and France’s Eurazeo, and has undertaken road testing in Europe and the United States with remote drivers and no one behind the wheel.
Von der Ohe said that the firm would progressively deploy autonomous capabilities as it learns from the cameras integrated into its cars, which are significantly less expensive than the lidar and radar equipment employed by other autonomous vehicle makers.
“We see a decade or two of human-machine interaction where autonomous driving will play a part once it’s available and ready to deploy, and then the other part will always be done by a teledriver,” he told me.
However, von der Ohe said that the firm sees a “massive use case” for remote driving duties and is in talks with manufacturers about incorporating features such as remote valet and other services.
“If every vehicle drives off the production line equipped with teledriving… you can have an on-demand tele-valet that parks your car for you,” von der Ohe remarked, “and then teledrives you home in your car if you have a few glasses to drink.”
Vay’s debut comes at a difficult moment for autonomous car companies.
General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle division has struggled in the face of regulatory scrutiny after an October accident in which a San Francisco woman was pulled by a car.
A remote-controlled vehicle is defined as any vehicle that is teleoperated using a method that does not limit its mobility and has an origin outside of the device. This is often a radio-control device, a cable connecting the controller to the vehicle, or an infrared controller.
Remote-controlled vehicles have a variety of scientific applications, including operating in hazardous situations, working in the deep ocean, and space research.
Small-scale remote-control cars have long been popular with enthusiasts. These remote-controlled cars vary in price and complexity. There are several varieties of radio-controlled vehicles, including on-road automobiles, off-road trucks, boats, submarines, aircraft, and helicopters. The “robots” shown in television series like Robot Wars are a recent evolution of this pastime.
Radio control is the most common option since the vehicle’s range is not restricted by the length of a cable, unlike infrared control, which requires direct line-of-sight with the controller.
