Robotaxis take to the roads of Texas
Aurora’s ambition is to soon offer a carpooling fleet using its modified Toyota Siennas. In the meantime, these tests will be used to finetune the development of Aurora Connect, its future autonomous transport product.
Since the unveiling of the first prototype last fall, Aurora has refined its on-board equipment, and Toyota has adapted several Sienna vehicles for it to be integrated into. Aurora is now testing the fleet in Dallas. The preferred route will take the cars from Toyota’s North American headquarters in Plano to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The cars will be fully autonomous and will operate both in the city and on the highway.
The technology developed by Aurora will thus have a chance to prove itself when it comes to changing lanes, managing speeds (up to 110 km/h), and various maneuvers. The solution developed by Aurora will also have to demonstrate that it is capable of reacting in a safe manner whatever the weather or traffic conditions, in particular by detecting the presence of other road users. During the test phase, a supervisor will be on board, ready to intervene if necessary.
In addition to this test, Aurora is also running partially autonomous cars in Pittsburgh. The startup has also made a name for itself by buying Uber’s self-driving unit in late 2020. Its fully autonomous system project is in competition with that of Waymo, from the Alphabet Group, which already runs self-driving taxis on the streets of Phoenix and San Francisco. Those cars — Jaguar I-Pace models equipped with the latest generation of the “Waymo Driver” autonomous driving system — can transport, without a driver, several passengers in urban areas.
