[Vay smartphone app, requesting rental car to be delivered via remote teledriver]
[Vay remotely driven car arriving]
[Car interior, steering wheel moving]
[Vay remotely driven car exiting junction]
[View from remotely driven car]
[Teledriver Antonella Rosa driving car remotely]
Caleb Varner (interview): “You’ll be able to hit a button, get a car delivered to you in a couple minutes, similar to the way that users would be used to with other mobility apps. When that happens, the car will be delivered to them driverlessly, they’ll pop in, drive the car wherever they want, whether it’s for a couple minutes, a couple hours or even more. They’ll bring it back, hit the button, the driver that sits in this chair here will take that car back from them and take it to the next user.”
[Vay teledriver technology]
[Vay electric vehicle, cameras]
Caleb Varner (interview): “It really brings this driverless experience to the public in a way that they’ve never seen before. So, that way that will happen is something really important that we think is, first of all, from an ability to bring this product forward that’s an EV. So first of all, there’s sustainability component. It’s convenient, like rental cars or by-minute rental cars have never been before anywhere in the world. So, it’s really exciting to have that convenience that was only reserved for other forms of mobility, think about rideshare. And then finally the economics, so we expect to be significantly less expensive than rideshare because at the end of the day, you’re driving yourself, you don’t have to employ a driver. Or one of the rideshare companies doesn’t have to have a driver there waiting on you as well. So, it really just results in a very convenient experience unparalleled within the rental car or by-minute rental car share industry.”
[Rosa preparing to drive car remotely]
[Rosa driving car remotely]
[Steering wheel]
[Wing mirror]
[View from remotely driven car, stops for crossing pedestrian]
[Vay remotely driven car exiting junction]
Antonella Rosa (interview): “The difference is like just experience, right? Like, seeing everybody, like, driving you around and, like, no one in the car, those reactions is what really makes it great. And then just like people’s reactions to actually just the tech itself, like, come in the car, they’re like, oh wait, actually someone did this instead of actually just assuming it’s autonomous. But driving itself, there’s really no difference. It’s just like driving any regular car.”
[Vay remotely driven car entering parking area]
[Steering wheel]
Caleb Varner (interview): “So, we see this is a complementary technology to AV, we wouldn’t say that’s a substitute. It’s actually a very different use-case. We’re delivering you a car, not driving around in a car. So, what I think is this is just showing that as AV is brought additional investment into the market, people that have backed us have also said, hey, we see this as a complementary service that will complement both what exists in rideshare, but also what could potentially present itself in the AV world as well. So, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily affirming or denying what’s going to happen in the AV space, who knows? People have been saying, as the famous joke, it’s two years away, two years away. We don’t know, we don’t make any assumptions. But what we do know is this is part of that ecosystem, it’s moving towards a world where users have lots of different options, whether it’s rideshare, whether it’s AV, or whether it’s getting their vehicle delivered to them remotely.”
[Vay remotely driven car parking]
[Las Vegas Strip, New York-New York Hotel & Casino exterior]
[Traffic on Tropicana Avenue]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.