nuTonomy Announces Collaboration with Grab

A special “robo” icon within the Grab app will allow users to book the cars for free. The current area of coverage will be within the One-North Business District, and near-surrounding areas.

Driverless technology company nuTonomy made waves earlier, being the first in the world to launch a driverless car service in Singapore, had been running tests on their vehicles and systems since April this year.

Stressing that safety is paramount, all cars in service will have a support engineer and safety driver, who also takes over the wheel if the car does leave the area which LTA has designated for the test, thus extending the range of the service, and creating more realism, by including MRT stations as part of their intended test route.

While rides are free, the purpose of the trial is aimed at the refinement of Grab’s routing technology and gathering information to improve on service delivery of nuTonomy’s self-driving cars; and to understand public reception of driverless cab services. Their research would form the basis on the size of the commercial launch, which nuTonomy chief executive, Karl Iagnemma mentioned that there is no fixed date as of yet.

unTonomy will be working with the Singapore authorities to expand on its future collaboration with Grab.

Singapore, according to Karl, was naturally the choice country to conduct initial trials, due to governmental support and having the right infrastructure.

Credits: Clifford Chow