Robotaxis coming to Las Vegas in 2023
Autonomous vehicle company Motional will begin offering fully driverless rides in Las Vegas via the Lyft app in 2023, marking the first such public offering in the state.
The deployment will feature fully electric Hyundai IONIQ 5 robotaxis and marks the next step for the service that has provided autonomous rides with a safety driver in place since 2018, Motional announced Tuesday.
“Motional and Lyft pioneered collaboration between the ride-hail and driverless industries, and are now laying the foundation for large-scale deployments of driverless robotaxis,” Motional President and CEO Karl Iagnemma said in a statement. “We look forward to beginning this next chapter in Las Vegas, and then quickly scaling to other markets across the Lyft network.”
Motional and Lyft have provided over 100,000 public rides around the Las Vegas Strip area while not having a single at-fault road incident since the service was launched at CES 2018.
To prepare for the removal of the safety driver, Motional recently announced it was tripling the size of its test track and doubling its operations center near McCarran International Airport. That expansion will also lead to the creation of 100 new jobs.
The Las Vegas launch is expected to be a springboard for a wider multi-city launch, with Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan Green saying the service is a hint of things to come for the ride-hailing industry.
“Lyft’s powerful network is the ideal platform for deploying autonomous vehicles at scale. Motional’s driverless tech, combined with Lyft’s marketplace engine, brings us firmly into the self-driving future,” Green said. “We can’t wait for riders in Las Vegas to be the first to summon fully driverless cars on the Lyft platform.”
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.
