World's First Driverless Taxi Starts Road Trials In Singapore

nuTonomy Driverless Taxi

The main reason for organising this trial ride was to get enough first-hand feedback from the public before the robo-taxi officially hits the road. Doug Parker, the Chief Operating Officer of nuTonomy said, "This is really a moment in history that's going to change how cities are built, how we really look at our surroundings." Adding more, Parker said, "Quite frankly I think Uber is the Goliath and we need to show that our technology is working and getting to a level of maturity that is viable for the marketplace. We're in a technology race here and I think there are going to be a handful of winners." That said, the company has revealed that these trial rides are still on an ongoing basis and follows private testing that began early this year, in April 2016.

For this project, Parker's company nuTonomy has entered into a special partnership with the Singapore government, which has long sought to turn the city-state into a hub for disruptive technology through generous financial assistance programs and research partnerships with firms like nuTonomy. Parker even announced that he is hoping to have at least 100 commercially working driverless taxi in the South-East Asian city-state by 2018.

nuTonomy Driverless Taxi Technology

Coming to the vehicle itself, nuTonomy's test vehicles include a Renault Zoe and Mitshibushi i-MiEv electric vehicle, which come fitted with their autonomous technology. For this special driverless taxi trial ride, nuTonomy used the Mitsubishi EV. During the whole course of the trial ride, an engineer was sitting behind the steering wheel to monitor the system and take control if necessary.

nuTonomy Driverless Taxi Cabin

nuTonomy is one of the several companies racing to launch self-driving vehicles, with automakers and technology firms striking new alliances. Swedish automaker Volvo AB said last week it had agreed to a $300 million alliance with ride-hailing service Uber to develop a driverless vehicle. Israeli driving assistant software maker Mobileye NV said its vehicle, developed with Delphi Automotive Plc, would be ready for production by 2019, while Ford Motor Co said its self-driving car was slated for 2021. Other firms, most notably Alphabet's Google, have already clocked millions of miles on public roads with their autonomous vehicles.