The ride-hailing world is changing fast. Waymo is already running over 200,000 paid robotaxi trips per week in select U.S. cities. Tesla is gearing up to launch its own autonomous ride-hailing service later this year. Now, more upstarts are entering the ring, albeit with unique approaches.
A new pilot program launched in Detroit this week has a novel take on ride-hailing. The program, Corktown Carshare, was developed by upstart Sway Mobility and software firm Mapless AI.
Their ride-hailing approach is different. Instead of a fully autonomous robotaxi, a remote operator delivers a Kia Niro EV to your doorstep. Then you take over the wheel. Once you’re done, the car drives itself—with help from a remote operator—to the next rider or a charging station if it’s running low on juice.
It’s an out-of-the-box approach, different from the methods embraced by established players like Waymo, which rely on expensive hardware and billions of dollars of investments in developing the required tools and processing power. But even Waymo tested its early robotaxis with human oversight before its technology matured.
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“Having the user take on the driving after delivery makes this a significantly cheaper mobility option,” Philipp Robbel, the CEO of Mapless AI, told InsideEVs. This approach is akin to having a mix of a personal vehicle and an Uber, Robbel said.
The remote operator sits behind a video-game-like desk setup, with multiple screens and a literal steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedal similar to a normal vehicle. Currently, only one Niro EV operates in a roughly 2-mile geo-fenced area in Detroit with a safety driver onboard. That’s the first phase of the service, which is expected to last another three to six months, Michael Peters, the CEO of Sway Mobility told InsideEVs.
More vehicles and features are expected to come online in the second phase. That includes users scheduling their trips using a smartphone app. Once the car arrives, it can be unlocked using the app and then the customer can take over the driving. After the trip, a teleoperator will drive the vehicle to the next user.
If it requires maintenance or if the battery is low, the remote driver will guide the car to the nearest depot or charging station.
Photo by: Sway Mobility and Mapless AI
“For us, the unit cost is significantly less so we can use a Kia Niro EV off the shelf and we add to it our cameras, lidar sensors and a low-cost compute unit,” Robbel said. “LiDAR sensors have become significantly cheaper over the years and we think having that redundant sensing in the forward direction is something smart to add.”
As of now, one ride costs $5 before taxes for an hour of rental commitment, according to the Corktown Carshare website.
“For our use case—electric vehicle carshare—the purpose of remote driving is to increase the utilization of the fleet but not to offer a driven or chauffeured service,” Peters said.
In the future, the startup hopes to incorporate different vehicles. “We’re using the technology to position and reposition the car,” Peters said. “Plus, the ability to have different types of vehicles in the fleet. What if someone needs a wheelchair-accessible vehicle or a seven-passenger vehicle? Things like that can be delivered.”
But what happens during a power outage or if there’s too much latency in the communication network that the remote operators rely on? That’s when the vehicle will lean more on its onboard software and hardware, such as LiDAR and cameras.
Photo by: Sway Mobility and Mapless AI
“The vehicle has enough intelligence onboard to execute a minimum risk maneuver,” Robbel said. That means it can slow down, pull over to the side and turn on its hazard lights before a fix can be figured out. That’s similar to how most passenger vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) respond to unresponsive drivers or emergencies.
Robbel said passengers trust human drivers—a remote operator in this case—more than a computer. Studies show that trust in robotaxis is slowly growing, but still the vast majority of Americans remain skeptical of them. That’s why teleoperation could be an interim or a hybrid solution before the infrastructure and technology required for fully autonomous tech are widely available, according to Robbel.
“Teleoperation may have a longer future than we think, but we will also adjust,” Robbel said, where the companies may “consider introducing more autonomous features into this mix.”
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