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AI Transportation

Lyft Begins Offering Driverless Robotaxis on the Las Vegas Strip (silive.com) 37

Posted by EditorDavid from the what-happens-in-Vegas dept.
A local news report called it "a futuristic dream, now a reality in Las Vegas: self-driving vehicles moving customers up and down the Las Vegas strip." Lyft's ride-hailing service now lets customers book Motional's all-electric (and autonomous driving) IONIQ 5.

Not everyone's sold. "Love technology — love it, promote it — but we don't need to replace every human," said one person interviewed on the street. But "the digital wave continues to sweep Las Vegas," the newscast points out, with the car company's director of commercial fleet operations insisting it will ultimately make transportation more affordable, sustainable, and reliable. "We look at this as an opportunity to really show that robotaxis are the best way for people to get around," he says, noting Vegas drivers have to contend with lots of night-time driving, bright lights, unusually wide lanes and big intersections.

The city once adopted the slogan "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," and some passengers might appreciate the extra privacy of a truly driverless vehicle. Passengers "for the time being, will be accompanied by two safety drivers in the event of an error," according to news reports, but that's expected to change soon: "Motional and Lyft have a clear path to widespread commercialization of Level 4 autonomous vehicles," said Karl Iagnemma, Motional's president and CEO. "We've led the industry in commercial operations for years, and today's launch signals we're on track to deliver a fully driverless service next year...."

Upon arrival, riders who order the IONIQ 5 can unlock the doors to the vehicle using the Lyft mobile app. Once inside the vehicle, customers can start the ride or contact customer support by using the new in-car Lyft AV app [on a touchscreen for passengers]. By making these new features available now, despite the presence of the two safety drivers, Lyft hopes to solicit customer feedback and refine the new tools before the service goes fully driverless in 2023.

Lyft and Motional have been piloting autonomous rides in other vehicles in Las Vegas since 2018, with more than 100,000 autonomous rides provided thus far, over 95% of which have received five-star ratings, according to the companies. Feedback gathered on the new IONIQ 5 autonomous vehicle over the coming months will help to inform Lyft's launch of fully driverless e-hail trips in Las Vegas sometime next year.

After that, the company plans to expand the driverless, e-hail service to various other markets throughout the country.
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Lyft Begins Offering Driverless Robotaxis on the Las Vegas Strip More

Lyft Begins Offering Driverless Robotaxis on the Las Vegas Strip

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  • Johnny Cabs [youtube.com] everywhere. And not paying the fare could be dangerous [youtube.com]. Good thing the phone software knows who you are and can pay from a linked account.

  • >despite the presence of the two safety drivers,

    Just like original automobiles required a person walking in front.

    And so technology advances continue.

    I'm looking forward to going to dinner in town, getting out of the car, and saying "park, or just drive around for 2 hours".

    Also looking forward to it taking me an hour to drive 2 miles to get to my restaurant.

    • I look backward to being able to bike, walk, or take transit (trains! trains! lovely trains!) to dinner. Cars are isolation boxes. Rolling prisons.

  • will the law let them go fully driverless in 2023?

    • will the law let them go fully driverless in 2023?

      Will the law allow Lyft to install slot machines in them? After all it is Las Vegas and those things are EVERYWHERE...or at least they used to be.

  • Because I may well be wrong on this.

    So Tesla, with it's much-ballyhooed Full Self Driving that is yet to be delivered, is falling far behind Waymo and now Lyft with their driverless cars?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Waymo drives up and down the strip. Tesla has to figure out navigating nearly every street in America. Also, the Waymo is loaded with a lot more sensors. Tesla has sensors around the center of the vehicle, while Waymo has sensors around the edges of the vehicle, which make it better at detecting forward cross-traffic around corners.

  • Serious questions here, what happens if someone passes out, or dies (its going to happen eventually) inside the cab? Do you just open the door and push them out? Or do you have to report them?

    Far more likely, but still an open question: what happens when someone has an "accident", cut/bleeds, or vomits/hurls inside said robotaxi - what happens to the next passenger, and does the taxi even know?

    After 8 hours in the full sun the stunning smell is going to be something else when that door cracks open...

  • Well, this is Las Vegas (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday August 20, 2022 @03:22PM (#62806775)

    "The city once adopted the slogan "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," and some passengers might appreciate the extra privacy of a truly driverless vehicle."

    Certainly it might make the Mob's job easier. Need to dispose of a body? Just call a cab!

    Humans being what they are, especially when drunk - I fully expect many of these cabs will turn into unsanitary stinking metal cans very quickly.

    • > Certainly it might make the Mob's job easier. Need to dispose of a body? Just call a cab! At the very least this would provide investigators with a timestamped, geolocated video of the drop off. Plus any metadata they could pull from your account if you didn't have perfect opsec. If you want to pretty much guarantee getting caught, this is a pretty good way to do it.

  • Wake me up when they get rid of the safety drivers.

    • Probably more like wake up the safety drivers. We know it is not that much safety from the uber crash in AZ. Maybe a pair of safety drivers is better, but maybe not. They may be chatting with each other instead of watching the road.
      • There is no way anyone who thinks about is going to take a safety driver position. At the best you are just the fall guy if anything goes wrong.
        From the passenger side do I still need to tip them, and what kind of person is accepting that job.
  • one of these injures someone, traps them inside, gets into an "accident" people with their litigeous family lawyers are going to ask how could this possibly happen and act like they havnt been warned.
  • I'll never have to worry about being on the Strip and getting run down by some half-assed self-driving car full of drunks.

    • Fully self-driving cars have caused only one death, and that was back in 2016-ish because Uber cheapened out and got rid of most of their sensors. Meanwhile, last year human-driven cars murdered over 40,000 people in the USA . One million deaths by human-driven cars worldwide.

      • I look forward to safer streets and no more Nascar-inspired boy racers killing themselves and innocent pedestrians by the tens of thousands, but that stat is meaningless until converted to 'deaths per miles travelled'.
        • Unsafe drivers should rightly have their licenses revoked, yes, I can agree with you on that. But someone like you shouldn't be driving either, since you're so scared of the experience all the time, and scared people make mistakes that could cost people their lives, too. So, gramps, I'd recommend you surrender your license right away, and either get your grandkids to drive you back and forth to your geriatric care appointments, or call an Uber, or take the bus or something. That's what'll make the streets s

      • Fully self-driving cars have caused only one death, and that was back in 2016-ish

        Sure. Because they've been restricted to non-public roads for the most part, and otherwise have always had a human driver to oversee it and keep it from going on a killing spree, since it's shitty excuse for AI can't tell the difference between an inanimate object and a living being.
        When the deaths, sadly, start happening, they'll be forced to pull these death machines off the streets, and the government will inevitably ban them.

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