Las Vegas Airport BMW Taxi Service Comes Without Drivers
Aptiv has been toting people around Las Vegas in their driverless BMW 5 series for over a year and soon will offer rides to and from the airport.
Are you the type of person who gets off a plane, and the last thing you want to do is carry out a mundane small-talk conversation with a taxi driver? Well, we’ve got some excellent news for you. That is, if you’re flying into Las Vegas. Soon, you’ll be able to hail a BMW 5-Series to get to your destination without anyone driving it. This is all thanks to the auto-tech company Aptiv.
While Aptiv’s autonomous cars have been giving rides around the strip for a while now, CNET reports Aptiv’s BMWs will soon be tackling their most significant hurdle yet: McCarran International Airport. The airport program currently isn’t open for public use, but it’s looking like there is a good chance it will be relatively soon.
The technology used in keeping these cars operating safely is pretty insane. According to APTIV’s website, each BMW 540i has a combination of 19 radar and lidar detectors for both long and short-range and two cameras. Currently, you can take a ride in one around the Las Vegas strip via the Lyft app. Though the cars do drive themselves, each one has two trained operators upfront to ensure smooth operation. In 2018, The Las Vegas Sun reported that Aptiv had completed 32,000 rides in Las Vegas with only three accidents, none of which were the fault of the autonomous cars.
The driverless BMWs have an average Lyft driver rating of 4.97 stars. CNET also reported that Aptiv hit its 50,000-mile milestone in mid-2019 with no new accidents to report. Thus, the expansion to the airport seems to be in great timing.
Aptiv plans on selling its technology as a platform that can be installed in any car. Their idea is that any company could buy the assemblies and put them in vehicles for their uses, rather than selling complete autonomous cars as a whole. Their Las Vegas driving has been a great testbed and demonstration of their success in driverless vehicle tech.
It’s pretty remarkable how rapidly technology is evolving. Even knowing the technology exists is a bit baffling, but just casually walking down the Las Vegas strip and seeing a self-driving car working its way through traffic like any other vehicle on the road is mind-blowing. We’d love to take a ride in one of these things sometime.
So, in the near future, if you find yourself flying into the McCarran International Aiport, just know that you might be chauffeured to your hotel by, well, nobody.
Photos: Aptiv