Uber rival begins driverless car trial
Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing service, will team with driverless software developer nuTonomy Inc. for one year to expand the reach of its small fleet of autonomous driving cars in Singapore, as nuTonomy works toward its goal of a full commercial launch by 2018.
Grab is the second carhailing service to offer selfdriven vehicles on a trial basis to its users, after Uber Technologies Inc.
NuTonomy’s trial had been open only to hand- picked members of the public and its fleet was restricted to a 200- hectare business park with light traffic.
But beginning Sept. 23, a small group of Grab customers within the park will be able to use the app to book a ride beyond those confines, with an on-board engineer and a driver behind the wheel. Grab will select the passengers from those who book in advance, taking factors such as distance and destination into account.
Since the point is to test autonomous and booking systems, all rides are free, the companies said in a statement. As with the original trial that began August, a nuTonomy engineer tags along to ensure passenger safety, and a driver will take over the wheel when the car leaves the designated business park.
“The experience will be very similar to hailing a car today except that software will be driving the car, not a human driver,” Karl Iagnemma, nuTonomy’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said. “We’re confident that it’s time to put Grab customers in our cars and the valuable lessons learned from this pilot are going to prepare us for our commercial launch in 2018.”
Uber plans to allow customers in downtown Pittsburgh to summon cars with their phones. Similar to nuTonomy’s trial, its fleet of specially modified Volvo XC90 SUVs will have humans in the driver’s seat.
NuTonomy runs one of several autonomous driving projects in Singapore, which is promoting the technology as part of efforts to reduce a reliance on privately owned cars.
Results from the tie- up can be used to enhance routing and mapping for self- driving vehicles, while improving the performance and safety of nuTonomy’s cars. “Self- driving vehicles make a lot of sense” especially for customers in remote areas where they’re less likely to get a ride, said Lim Kell Jay, Grab’s country head for Singapore.
But Iagnemma warned: “What’s not the case is you will wake up one day a couple of years from now and see every car in Singapore on the road driving around with no one at the wheel.
“It’ ll be quite a long time before we get there.”