Yandex, the Russsian Internet giant is offering robotaxi rides that are not only self-driving, but there is no driver behind the wheel at all. The company launched its first self-driving prototype in May 2017.
Marques K. Brownlee, a popular America YouTuber known for his technology-focused videos has recently shared a video clip on his Instagram account in which he is seen travelling in Yandex driverless taxi.
He posted the video with the caption “Bruh. This is a completely driverless taxi cruising the streets of Las Vegas with iPad Pros visualizing what the radar and lidar are seeing. The future is coming.”
Yandex has developed its own autonomous driverless cars for use as taxis. The first model available to the public is a heavily modified Toyota Prius with three lidar units, six radar units, and six cameras and a GNSS sensor for navigation, with Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs using a Linux operating system.
Yandex Taxi initiated the first self-driving taxi service in Europe. It is used by approximately 200 Russian taxi companies that operate approximately 20 thousand cabs.