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T he world witnessed a revolution in the taxi industry with the advent of ride hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft . Existing firms have been forced to modernise their offerings – introducing apps , for instance – and make the process more transparent . Now , advanced artificial intelligence is giving rise to a new disruptive force in the industry : robotaxis .
The technology has inspired utopian visions of the end of private car ownership , with people instead being able to rely on a fully automated fleet of vehicles to take them to their intended destinations , on demand . Whether that eventually comes true is yet to be seen ; what is certain , however , is that robotaxis are already undergoing limited public trials across the world , operated by the likes of NuTonomy in Singapore and Waymo in Phoenix , Arizona . It seems likely that China , however , will see the first commercial use of the technology , with Chinese tech giant Baidu targeting a launch in the city of Changsha by the end of the year .
The race to evolve the technology has , at times , been bitter . Google sued Uber for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to driverless vehicles in 2017 and the engineer at the centre of the case , Anthony Levandowski , was charged with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft in August 2019 . The holy grail driving the frenzied competition
© Waymo
© Tesla
NOVEMBER 2019