Russian tech giant Yandex is providing demonstration rides in its self-driving cars with no one behind the steering wheel on the public streets of Las Vegas during CES 2020.
Following CES, Yandex will head to Detroit where it will provide an autonomous taxi service with an expanded fleet of self-driving vehicles for the visitors of the June 2020 North American International Auto Show.
In its second year at CES, Yandex is operating its self-driving vehicles in driverless mode, around the neighborhoods of the Hard Rock Hotel.
For the CES 2020 demonstration rides, the cars will autonomously perform unprotected left turns, navigate around multilane streets and crosswalks in heavy traffic at speeds up to 45 mph. The retrofitted Toyota Prius cars operate with the latest generation of the Yandex’s autonomous hardware and software, including a new sensor array, which enables the vehicle to more accurately understand the world around it.
“We’re excited to be back in the US at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas for the second year in a row,” says Dmitry Polishchuk, Head of Yandex Self-Driving. “The technology in our autonomous cars has improved tremendously as we accumulated over 1.5 million autonomous miles in diverse conditions. Constantly driving our cars in challenging environments in Russia, Israel, and the US improves their safety, navigation capabilities, and adaptability to diverse driving conditions. We look forward to providing an advanced autonomous riding experience in Las Vegas this week. Looking ahead, we will be bringing our public robo-taxi service to the June 2020 North American International Auto Show.”
Since last year’s CES, the Yandex Self-Driving fleet has grown from 10 vehicles to more than 100 today. With this fleet expansion, our self-driving cars accumulated 1,500,000 autonomous miles and provided over 5,000 robo-taxi rides with no driver behind the wheel. Yandex is also developing proprietary lidars for specific self-driving tasks while simultaneously reducing their cost. Recently, Yandex introduced its autonomous delivery robot, Yandex.Rover, which will ultimately help automate last-mile deliveries and warehouse logistics.
