This self-driving vehicle appears almost identical to a driverless robotaxi, commonly found in a few cities – but it’s a unique concept developed by the German startup Vay.
One of a number of emerging players seeking to disrupt road transportation, the seven-year-old company is centered on remote driving, with a human very much involved, though based in an office, where they use television monitors to guide the vehicle.
Over the past year, riders in Las Vegas have been able to put Vay through a test drive, and the company showcased its technology in advance of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a global technological showcase event.
Thomas von der Ohe, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Vay, stated that his company employs a “lower-cost approach that has nothing to do with autonomous driving.”
Von der Ohe, who previously worked at the autonomous driving company Zoox, owned by Amazon, stated that, unlike autonomous driving companies, Vay does not need to “run massive amounts of simulations” to ensure safety.
Our core safety principle is that the human driver is in charge of the decision-making.
Unlike a Tesla or Waymo, there is no concept at Via of one day dispensing with the steering wheel, which swivels and turns during drives as if controlled by an unseen entity.
The remote driving approach also uses relatively affordable camera technology, which costs a small portion of the expensive Lidar sensing systems utilized by leading companies in autonomous vehicles.
Observations of a remote driving technology demonstration revealed someone controlling a system, akin to at-home racing simulators, by interacting with a steering wheel and pedals while monitoring live imagery from multiple camera angles on three screens, including front, side, and rear views.
Vay is offering rides at half the price of Uber or Lyft. Von der Ohe aims to achieve profitability within the next one to two years, contingent on the pace at which the company is able to expand its operations.
Von der Ohe stated that since its launch 12 months ago, Vay’s Las Vegas fleet has expanded from two to 30 vehicles, and they have completed a total of 6,000 rides.
Mr. von der Ohe thinks the company’s cash generator will not be ride-hailing, but the delivery of vehicles to consumers who will then own and drive them.
In this manner, Vay resembles a car rental company.
Since the launch in Las Vegas, some customers have ordered and then driven home-made available Vays.
This flexibility is one reason “we believe this can be a real alternative to private cars,” according to von der Ohe.
