The Chinese company Pony.ai yesterday, April 25, officially received a license to operate its unmanned taxi service in China, Reuters reported citing its sources. It is worth noting that this is the first company in the history of the country, which the Chinese authorities allowed to use unmanned vehicles for the implementation of the taxi service – previously everyone was simply refused. Now, probably, the very idea of ​​​​a taxi without a driver will develop by leaps and bounds, since the plans of the company’s management are really grandiose.
The first unmanned vehicles in the taxi service will be launched in May this year, but so far we are talking about only 100 vehicles without a driver. They will operate in the Nansha district of Guangzhou, but after the conditional testing phase, the company plans to actively expand to provide its services to other locations in the city. An unmanned taxi in the Nansha region will work from 8:30 am to 10:30 pm, which indicates the confidence of the developers in their technology – there is no restriction, taking into account traffic congestion. But they don’t offer discounts for driving a drone – the rates will be standard, like for a regular taxi in Guangzhou.
Pony.ai employees said that passengers will be able to call an unmanned taxi and pay for travel through the application, but they will not be able to enjoy complete privacy during the trip. The fact is that a driver will still be present in an unmanned vehicle – he will not participate in driving a car, but a specialist is needed for security purposes. The company said that they plan to remove the driver from the car in the very near future, but no one began to name the exact dates. Probably, the need for a person behind the wheel arose after one of the startup’s unmanned vehicles crashed in California – now the authors of the project decided not to risk it.
Source: Trash Box
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