Robot taxis will soon be driving in your neighborhood.
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Argo AI, a robocar company backed by Volkswagen and Ford, recently announced plans to deploy the first commercial autonomous taxi service in Germany by 2025. The battery-powered vehicles will be equipped with laser lidar sensors, radar, cameras and AI software. It’s part of a growing interest in self-driving public transportation that could be cheaper and safer than regular taxis.
“When considering an imminent threat, such as an animal running in front of a vehicle, the vehicle’s control systems make an instantaneous decision to brake or take other evasive action,” David Linthicum, Deloitte Consulting’s chief cloud strategy officer, told Lifewire in an email interview. “Self-driving vehicles can do this much more quickly than typical human responses, where we have to perceive the threat, decide how to respond, and then respond with the appropriate and safest decision.”
Argo presented a design for its new robot taxi in early September, which resembles a fresh version of Volkswagen's iconic microbus from the 1950s.
