Vay: Start in Las Vegas instead of Hamburg 🎥
FUTURE Vay has launched its first commercial tele-driving mobility service in Las Vegas. Unlike in Germany, where the first remote-controlled cars were already driving on public roads in Hamburg in February 2023.
After a few weeks in the early access phase, the authorities in the States gave the green light for the tea-driven mobility service around the University of Nevada (UNLV) and in the Arts District. The German company is still waiting for approval today.
Background: At the beginning of May, Thomas von der Ohe took to the stage of the Tipi am Kanzleramt in a tuxedo. The head of the tele-driving startup Vay was named Founder of the Year by the German Startup Association - in front of a crowd of startup celebrities. His company is regarded as the European beacon of hope in autonomous driving.
Order a car via app
And this is how the system works: customers can order an electric vehicle at the touch of a button in the app and a teledriver drives the Kia forward - remotely controlled from the teledriving center. There, the drivers sit at a station with a car steering wheel and pedals as well as all the necessary controls. They have an overview of the traffic situation via several screens and headphones. The customers then drive themselves to their destination.
One kilometer costs 30 US cents
Once there, the teledriver takes over the vehicle again, drives it on or parks it. Stops at the supermarket, for example, are also possible via the app. As with the familiar sharing services, billing is based on a minute-by-minute basis. In the USA, 30 US cents are charged per minute driven and three cents per minute for stopovers.
Approval process underway
Vay co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe: "We are delighted to be able to bring our vision to life so quickly in the USA. We are eagerly awaiting the end of the approval process in Germany. We have been developing our technology for five years and are ready for the launch."
Now the word just has to get around in the German bureaucracy.
