Japan will begin testing autonomous taxis with passengers on city roads in 2016, the government and Robot Taxi Inc. announced on Thursday.
The trial robot taxi service will first be offered to fifty residents in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture to run errands like grocery shopping, The Wall Street Journal reports. Running no more than 3 km (roughly 2 miles), the trips will run along major city roads and will be accompanied by crew incase something goes awry.
The robot taxis are retrofitted Toyota Estima hybrid minivans from Robot Taxi, a venture between Sony-owned ZMP and DeNA Co, the same company that is helping develop Nintendo IP-based smartphone games. Japan hopes to commercialize the driverless taxi service by the 2020 Olympics.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...
The trial robot taxi service will first be offered to fifty residents in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture to run errands like grocery shopping, The Wall Street Journal reports. Running no more than 3 km (roughly 2 miles), the trips will run along major city roads and will be accompanied by crew incase something goes awry.
The robot taxis are retrofitted Toyota Estima hybrid minivans from Robot Taxi, a venture between Sony-owned ZMP and DeNA Co, the same company that is helping develop Nintendo IP-based smartphone games. Japan hopes to commercialize the driverless taxi service by the 2020 Olympics.
Continue reading…
Continue reading...