Lyft Brings Driverless Cars to Vegas Strip

Mia Gardner | 09 May 2018

It’s the stuff that science fiction movies are made have, and if not in Vegas, then where? Ride service Lyft has announced that it will soon be launching a brand new way for drunkards to make their way around Las Vegas. The ride service has said that it will be deploying 30 BMW 5 Series cars around Las Vegas to drive players up and down the strip, from casino to casino. Routes will later on be extended to include downtown Vegas too, and the cars are expected to be deployed by no later than July / August.

Ghost Drivers

At face value, a ride service deploying a fleet of cars, however luxurious, may not exactly qualify as exciting news. Not until you consider that the BMW’s that are set to be deployed will all be driverless. Riders will be able to hail the Lyft car as they would any other taxi or car service, only this time, the car will adhere to the beck and call of its own accord, as there will be no one behind the steering wheel.

Once inside the car, riders will be transported to their specified destination on the strip. What, you may wonder; does a ride service provider know about the intricacies of motor vehicle automation? Fear not, as the initiative will be conducted in partnership with Aptiv, who are in fact automated driving specialists.

Green Is Good

Aptiv CTO Glen De Vos has said that this is an important step towards rolling out Automated Mobility on Demand on a commercial scale and that the Strip was the perfect location to do this for the very first time. De Vos stressed the fact that safety was of utmost priority for Aptiv and that the rollout was being planned with care and in a thoughtful and safety-first manner.

De Vos said that the deployment would enable the company to gather data and further insight into the field of full automation, as the project gathered speed. He emphasised that each car would still be managed by a fully-trained operator, being trained on the road as well as off, in the management of fully automated and driverless vehicles.

De Vos ended off by saying that a sustainable and green future was the end-goal for Aptiv and that the Las Vegas rollout was the first real and practical step towards achieving this.