Singapore is embracing cars of the future in a big way by authorizing a public trial for self-driving taxis. NuTonomy’s first autonomous cabs have now started picking up passengers in the tiny island nation. Select users will be able to take a free ride in these taxis during the public trial period. A human driver will always be behind the wheel to take over should something go wrong.
Major companies like Google are also working on self-driving cars and their technology has come quite a long way. However, NuTonomy claims that it’s the first company in the world that has already started offering rides in self-driving cars to the public.
It has actually been able to do this before Uber. The world’s biggest ride-sharing service has confirmed that it will soon launch a public trial of its self-driving cars in Pittsburgh within a few weeks.
Rides will be offered in modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric cars and will be limited to the One North business district. Passengers must be invited to use the autonomous ride service.
Currently, NuTonomy has put six autonomous cabs on the roads in Singapore but it plans to expand the fleet to a dozen by the end of this year. NuTonomy says that its ultimate goal is to have a full self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018.
Filed in . Read more about Autonomous Cars and Self-Driving Cars. Source: techinasia