Yandex is excited to announce that we have received a license to operate our self-driving car in the state of Nevada. With this autonomous vehicle license, we will be demoing our self-driving car on the public roads of Las Vegas during the week of CES 2019. From Monday, January 7th until Friday, January 11th, we will be providing rides in our self-driving car for the first time outside of Russia.
The autonomous vehicle license in Nevada creates another opportunity to continue to advance our self-driving capabilities in new environments. In February 2018, the car began navigating the snowy streets of Moscow, and in late August we launched Europe’s first autonomous ride-hailing service in the tech hub of Innopolis, Russia. In October, Yandex.Taxi’s autonomous ride-hailing service expanded to the Skolkovo district of Moscow, and between the two locations we have delivered over 1,750 rides in just a few months. The autonomous ride-hailing service is operating with a safety engineer in the passenger seat.
We look forward to seeing all of our passengers at CES 2019 and sharing more about developing the Las Vegas vehicle and its testing ahead of CES.