The Nevada Transportation Authority has unanimously approved three business permits in Clark County. Tesla caps at 5,000 vehicles, Waymo and Uber at 1,000 each.
Nevada's transportation regulator on Thursday unanimously approved three permit applications authorizing Tesla, Uber and Waymo to operate a commercial robotaxis service in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. Combined, these approvals pave the way for the deployment of 8,000 autonomous vehicles over the next twelve months: 5,000 for Tesla, 1,000 for Waymo and 1,000 for Uber, the latter through its partners Motional (a subsidiary of Hyundai) and Zoox — Zoox already has its own permit for 100 vehicles.
The authorized figures look more like ceilings than targets. Questioned during the hearing, Tesla's chief engineer of Cybercab acknowledged that the company would not be able to reach 5,000 vehicles within a year, and that a fleet of around 2,500 units would already be a satisfactory result. The constraint, according to him, does not come from technology but from industrial capacity.
Even halfway through these volumes, Las Vegas is becoming one of the main battlegrounds for robotaxi in the United States, with three operators targeting the same customer base. Taxi and ride-hailing companies have opposed it, citing the saturation of the commercial transport market and the congestion of roads, particularly around the "Golden Triangle" between the airport and Las Vegas Boulevard, where the testing phase has so far been concentrated.
Read the full article on the original source
Go to the source →