Lyft Launches Autonomous Electric ‘Robotaxis’ in Las Vegas

Lyft Launches Autonomous Electric ‘Robotaxis’ in Las Vegas

Las Vegas residents and tourists alike can now request a ride in Motional’s Ioniq 5 RoboTaxi, a 5-seater vehicle produced by Hyundai and equipped with Motional’s own self-driving system. The Ioniq 5 has all the flashy features a wide-eyed rideshare app user could want: 18.8 cubic feet of storage space for riders’ luggage, futuristic parametric pixel lights, and the type of auto flush door handles you’d normally see on a Tesla. Its sleek design is eye-catching enough for those who want to be seen yet conventional enough for those who don’t—except, perhaps, for the spinning cameras that jut out of the vehicle’s sides and roof.

Lyft Launches Autonomous Electric ‘Robotaxis’ in Las Vegas

Motional’s technology itself is considered by SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers) to have level 4 “high driving” automation, the second-highest level of autonomy a vehicle can possess. But the vehicle needs to “see” the world around it in order to safely bring a rider from point A to point B without a driver’s help. It does this using 30 camera, radar, and lidar sensors that work together to create a 360-degree view of the vehicle’s environment. Motional says these sensors help the vehicle detect small movements or objects nearby, which is vital for an autonomous vehicle navigating such a busy and unpredictable environment as Las Vegas.

Lyft’s partnership with Motional began in 2018 when the two companies collaborated to bring conventional self-driving vehicles to Las Vegas. Together they’ve facilitated over 100,000 autonomous rides with a 95 percent enjoyment rate—but they’ve all been powered by fossil fuels. With the IONIQ 5, Lyft and Motional are able to bring “sustainable mobility” to Sin City. Riders are already able to request a trip in the IONIQ 5 in the Las Vegas metro area.

This is just the beginning: Lyft and Motional plan to launch a fully driverless service plan next year. It’s unclear how this differs from the IONIQ 5’s debut or whether this means human-driven cars will no longer be an option in areas using the plan. However, Lyft has said the fully driverless plan will be tested in Las Vegas before making it out to other US cities.

Continue reading

The Week in Space: Breakthroughs for the James Webb Space Telescope, Vega-C Rocket
The Week in Space: Breakthroughs for the James Webb Space Telescope, Vega-C Rocket

It's a rare thing indeed when a bombshell news story turns out to be good news. But this week, that's exactly what we've got.

Researchers Grew Bigger Vegetables Using Exhaled CO2 as Fertilizer
Researchers Grew Bigger Vegetables Using Exhaled CO2 as Fertilizer

Some of these veggies grew four times larger than their control counterparts.

Intel’s Kaby Lake-G Radeons Might Use Hybrid Polaris-Vega Solution
Intel’s Kaby Lake-G Radeons Might Use Hybrid Polaris-Vega Solution

The GPU at the heart of Intel's Kaby Lake-G silicon might be a hybrid Polaris and Vega solution, rather than a clean Vega part.

AMD Demos 7nm Vega for Machine Intelligence at Computex
AMD Demos 7nm Vega for Machine Intelligence at Computex

AMD's new Vega 7nm machine intelligence solution is debuting ahead of schedule.