Yandex Autonomous Vehicle Trials In Moscow Later This Year

Robotaxi from Yandex, will soon be tested in Moscow later this year. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA – The adventurous citizens of Moscow may soon be able to travel around the Russian capital in self-driving taxis. This may be because Russian tech giant Yandex plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in the city this year. The statement came from a company source on Wednesday, September 8.

Yandex, which operates a range of services ranging from online search to food delivery, has been testing self-driving technology for more than three years in Russia, Israel, and the United States.

Robotaxis will be available through Yandex.Go application, a company in one Moscow district to select customers, Yandex said in a statement.

"The launch at Yasenevo is the first stage of Yandex's big project to launch driverless taxis", a company source said, quoted by Reuters. "Over time, there will be more cars, the number of locations you can go to and from will increase, and more and more people will be able to hail driverless taxis".

Russian law does not yet allow driverless vehicles to run without a driver behind the wheel, except in special economic zones, such as the city of Innopolis in the Tatarstan region.

Restrictions on its use in certain areas of major cities could be partially lifted once the law goes into effect this year.

Yandex's fleet of about 170 driverless cars has covered a distance of more than 14 million kilometers. The company also has self-driving robots for food delivery, which are already operating on several US campuses through a partnership with online food ordering company GrubHub.

Yandex owns a 73% stake in the Yandex Self-Driving Group (SDG) and has agreed to buy the remaining stake from Uber by the end of the year.