Self-Driving Lyfts in Las Vegas

David Silver
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

A few weeks ago Lyft and Aptiv announced their 5000th paid self-driving car ride in Las Vegas. The Lyft blog announcement quotes Raj Kapoor: “Lyft is the largest network currently deploying a commercial self-driving program to the public.”

I believe that is correct and may, in fact, slightly understate Lyft’s position. Lyft is one of the only companies offering self-driving rides to the general public, since Uber halted its autonomous vehicle testing program earlier this year.

Waymo and several other companies have self-driving car pilots available to pre-screened participants, but few companies are currently opening their network to any member of the general public.

Earlier this year, AAA was running a self-driving NAVYA shuttle through downtown Las Vegas, although the website currently implies the shuttle is offline and will return later this month.

Las Vegas has long been a mecca for self-driving cars for a few reasons:

  • The weather is sunny
  • The streets are wide and rectilinear
  • The Consumer Electronics Show in January has prompted companies to run demos in the city already

Waymo announced earlier this year that its Phoenix-area self-driving cars would open to the general public at some point in 2018.

But, for now, the best place for you and me and almost anybody to try out a self-driving car is Las Vegas.

Written by

I love self-driving cars and I work on them at @Udacity! Learn to build self-driving cars with us: https://udacity.com/drive

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