Lyft and Motional’s all-electric robotaxi service is now live in Las Vegas

Image: Motional

There is a new service in Las Vegas. A fully self-driving service is set to launch in the city in 2023, and it is being run by a company called Motional.

Motional, which is a joint venture betweenHyundai and Aptiv, has been testing its cars in Las Vegas for over four years. Over 100,000 passenger trips have been completed as a result of the testing that began as a weeklong pilot between the two companies.

It is the first time that customers will be able to hail a ride in one of the company's vehicles that has been modified for commercial operations. If something goes wrong, the safety driver will remain behind the steering wheel. Next year, fully self-drive vehicles will join the service.

Motional and Lyft don't require riders to sign up for a waitlist or sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to use the service. The companies plan to charge for the service in the future.

The service is open to the public according to Motional's VP of commercialization. There is a Motional AV that can be requested by any of the riders in Las Vegas. There wasn't any non-disclosure agreements. There were no sign ups. Motional and Lyft have been operating that way for the last four years. Real riders are the best people to give feedback to.

There are a number of new features that will make this service unique from the traditional network of vehicles. The doors will be unlocked through the app. They will be able to start the ride or contact customer support once inside the vehicle, thanks to the new in-car app.

The new features are backed by extensive research and feedback from real riders. New user features are being made available to the public in preparation for when the service will be fully self-sufficient.

Motional has a permit to conduct testing in Nevada. The two companies say they will be able to conduct commercial rides with passengers in fully self-driving vehicles before the end of the decade.

When Motional was announced in March 2020, it was said that it would cost $1.6 billion to catch up to its rivals in the field of self-drive vehicles. In addition to testing its vehicles in Boston and Pittsburgh, the company has facilities in Las Vegas, Singapore, and South Korea.

Only a small number of operators have actually deployed Level 4 self-drive vehicles. In the past several years, the self-driving unit of Alphabet has been operating its Level 4 vehicles in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, and is now looking to do so in San Francisco. Cruise has a commercial service in San Francisco but only at night.

The company is positioning itself as a platform in which customers can arrange rides in self-drive vehicles. A subsidiary of Toyota bought the company's research and development division. Since then, they have struck deals with a number of companies.

Motional is one of the companies that uses Sin City as a base for its business. Amazon's subsidiary Zoox is testing its vehicles in Las Vegas.