This is a big year for us, so there was no better time than CES week to share that we will commercialize driverless operations later this year in Las Vegas.
While CES week was busy for most, our action was on Las Vegas Boulevard and surrounding neighborhoods as our robotaxi fleet was out in force. With Las Vegas being our initial commercial market, and the main base for technology testing and development, we welcomed business partners, suppliers and customers alike at our Technical Center, and more importantly, into our robotaxis to experience our progress.
Our track record makes us confident in our ability to successfully commercialize this year:
- We have expertise developed from operating both ride hail and delivery pilots giving us the know-how from more than 130,000 customer rides and deliveries across 3 different cities.
- Late last year we stood up a supervised ride hail operation for our employees to get around Las Vegas.
- And we have already begun operating in driverless mode in Las Vegas.
We know that in order to provide a valuable and effective service to our customers, our robotaxis need to serve where people are and where they demand to go. Our team is actively testing and improving the full rider experience from the pick up to the drop off at the rideshare locations in hotel casinos on the Strip to curbside in Downtown Las Vegas to other shopping districts, such as Town Square near the airport.
We’ve made sure that we’re able to provide our riders with the information and assistance they expect during their trip so they feel safe and secure. This includes an in-vehicle display to communicate key information with riders, such as the route for their trip and a visualization of what our robotaxi is seeing out on the road ahead, so riders feel comfortable knowing our autonomous driving system sees what they see.
While not open to the public yet, you may see a Motional Robotaxi without anybody in the driver seat pulling into your hotel or driving past the Fremont Street Experience. Check out the video of a recent driverless ride that I took when visiting the team back in December.
