NuTonomy has officially launched its own self-driving cars of taxis in Singapore on Thursday, three years after the company was first established and introduced in the public eye.
The autonomous car software startup and spinoff of the MIT made its public trial and it is now underway. The taxis are free to use for the public and is not just exclusive for test engineers, according to the New York Times.
The company claims it's the first ever public trial for a driverless cab service. In this trial, Singaporeans or other people with different nationalities living in the country to try their mobile app in order to summon one of the self-driving cars of taxis available.
MIT spinout NuTonomy just beat Uber to launch the world’s first self-driving taxi https://t.co/IAx1s4eXnk
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) August 25, 2016
The trial will take place within the country's one-north business district, which is the same area where the company has been using modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi iMiev cars to conduct tests since April. Testers will then be accompanied by an engineer to examine the performance of the system, as well as take over when necessary.
NuTonomy will then gather the data during the trial and take these to make some necessary improvements to the service. It will also collect data regarding the experiences of passengers, and will apply all the changes that need to be applied in time for its trade launch in the year 2018, according to Fortune.
NuTonomy's launch in Singapore has beaten ride-sharing service Uber's own launch of autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, which is slated to being in a few weeks. The company is starting small, with just six cars that will eventually double by the end of the year.
NuTonomy's top goal with the public trial of self-driving cars of taxis is to establish a fully driverless fleet in all of Singapore by 2018 to help reduce the number of cars in the congested roads of the country.
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