5,000 driverless miles for CES 2020
Yandex was excited to return to CES 2020 for our second year at the show in Las Vegas, presenting our self-driving cars. This year’s demonstrations focused on showing how the technology has improved over the past year as we have driven over 1.5 million miles since the 2019 show. In addition, we removed the safety driver from the driver’s seat for all of our demos. A first for Nevada roads!
In early December 2019 we started our preparations for CES 2020 navigating the streets of Las Vegas during both day and night, rain or shine. In all of these conditions, we drove with no one on the driver’s seat. The demo route we used stretched for almost 5 miles and included unprotected left-hand turns, multi-lane intersections, crosswalks, and many other road scenarios. In total, we drove nearly 5,000 driverless miles in Las Vegas over the last five weeks.
During CES, over 100 passengers took a driverless ride in Yandex’s autonomous car. Passengers included not only media and partners from all over the world but also folks such as the Garlin Gilchrist, the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan. The Lieutenant Governor came to take a ride to preview the experience Yandex will provide at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in June. Yandex will be offering driverless transportation to the public during the auto show alongside four other winners of the Michigan Mobility Challenge.
“We were excited to again present our self-driving cars here at CES. We already have experience of operating our vehicles with no one behind the steering wheel, but we need to test this technology in new conditions. There are only a few places in the world where it is permitted, and we don’t want to miss this opportunity. CES is a great place to show our technology to media and partners from all over the world” says Dmitry Polishchuk, Head of Yandex Self-Driving Cars. “We are now excited to head to Detroit. NAIAS 2020 will be the next great global event in which our vehicles will take part.”
Since the beginning of 2019 Yandex self-driving fleet has expanded from 10 cars to over 100 autonomous vehicles, which have driven over 1.5 million miles in just the last year on public roads of Russia, Israel, and the US.
Zoe Kleinman, BBC:
I have to admit that after an exhilarating first few minutes, it all felt pretty normal to me too.
Sasha Lekach, Mashable:
At one point I felt so comfortable I started texting my family about the self-driving miracle I was experiencing. Then I moved onto email after a traffic delay meant I was going to be late to my next meeting. Within minutes I had accepted the strange reality of no one being in the driver’s seat.
Danny Shapiro, Nvidia’s head of automotive engineering:
Our technology is used by hundreds of car manufacturers, truck manufacturers and shuttle providers working on autonomous systems. And Yandex is one of the leading companies in this field, testing their cars under particularly harsh conditions.
Steven Ewing, Roadshow by CNET:
The whole loop takes about 20 minutes, the car perfectly negotiating lane changes, left-hand turns at blinking yellow lights and aggressive drivers cutting in front of me — the typical heavy-traffic stuff.
Stefan Beutelsbacher, Die WELT:
Many are talking about autonomous driving at the CES (…) But only few offer trips in Las Vegas. And only Yandex dares to leave the driver’s seat unoccupied. Driving through the city in the converted Toyota of the Russians gives you an impression of what the era of robot cars could feel like.
