[NFBF-L] Robot Cars Coming to Miami Dade

[PLipovsky]

Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2021 3:17 PM
Subject Cars Coming to Miami Dade

 

Self-driving 'robotaxis' will roll into Miami-Dade By Rob Wile. Staff
Writer. 

Miami-Dade has moved closer to a future filled with driverless vehicles. F
ord, Lyft and the autonomous-driving-technology group Argo AI announced
Wednesday they would begin deploying self-driving ride-hail cars in
Miami-Dade, as well as Austin, Texas, this winter. Initially, passengers who
order self-driving Lyfts will not be alone in the vehicle: A safety driver
ready to take over the wheel, as well as a technology monitor, will be in
the front seats. 

Choosing a so-called "robotaxi" comes at no extra charge and there are no
preset routes. Fewer than 100 vehicles will be available at first, and the
exact areas where the Lyfts will be made available have yet to be selected.
The announcement is a significant step toward a long-promised future in
which ride-hail vehicles pick up passengers on their own. And it once again
puts Miami-Dade at the forefront, three years after Ford first announced it
had selected the Magic City as a primary test bed for its
self-driving-vehicle technology. Ford and Argo AI officials had previously
said they chose Miami-Dade not only because it allowed them to test their
technology year-round, but because driving conditions here are notoriously
unpredictable. "As us locals like to say: If you can drive in Miami, you can
drive anywhere," Alex Buznego, Miami-based autonomous vehicle market manager
for Ford Motor Company, wrote in March. 

By exposing Argo AI's self-driving system to the unique and challenging
situations in Miami, he said, Ford gets closer to scaling its technology to
other cities. "Every day, Argo AI encounters a variety of scenarios that we
don't experience in other cities. Miami is known for heavy traffic,
fast-driving cars and many pedestrians and cyclists," Buznego said. The
deployment represents the first commercial operation in a major city in the
race to roll out autonomous fleets. The only other ride-hailing operation
currently operating continuously is in Chandler, Ariz., near Phoenix, where
Google parent company Alphabet has set up a self-driving minivan service. 

"This collaboration marks the first time all the pieces of the autonomous
vehicle puzzle have come together this way," Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan
Green said in a statement on Wednesday. "Each company brings the scale,
knowledge and capability in their area of expertise that is necessary to
make autonomous ride-hailing a business reality. 

Over the next five years, the trio hope to use what they've learned in
Miami-Dade to deploy at least 1,000 autonomous vehicles in multiple markets.
"These three companies share a belief that autonomous vehicles will be a key
enabler for a cleaner, safer and more efficient urban mobility landscape,"
said Scott Griffith, CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles & Mobility Businesses,
in a statement. Rob Wile: 305-376-3203, @rjwile 

 

 

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