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Russia’s Yandex to test self-driving taxis in Moscow

yandex car
Yandex self-driving car

Adventurous Muscovites may soon be able to travel around parts of Moscow in driverless taxis as Russian tech giant Yandex (YNDX.O) plans to start testing the autonomous vehicles in the city this year, the company said on Wednesday.

Yandex, which operates a raft of services from online search to food delivery, has been testing self-driving technology for more than three years in Russia, Israel and the United States.

Robotaxis will available through the company’s Yandex.Go application in one Moscow district for certain customers, Yandex said in a statement.

“The launch in Yasenevo is the first stage of a large Yandex project to launch driverless taxis,” the company said. “Over time, there will be more cars, the number of locations you can go to and from will increase, and ever more people will be able to hail driverless taxis.”

Russian legislation does not yet allow driverless vehicles to travel without a person at the wheel, except in special economic zones, such as the city of Innopolis in the Tatarstan region.

Restrictions on their use in certain areas of large cities could be partially lifted after a law came into force this year.

Yandex’s fleet of around 170 driverless cars has travelled more than 14 million kilometres. The company also has self-driving robots for food delivery, which already operate on some U.S. college campuses through a partnership with online food-ordering company GrubHub . read more

Yandex owns a 73 per cent stake in Yandex Self-Driving Group (SDG). Russian internet giant Yandex (YNDX.O) said on August 31 that it would buy Uber’s (UBER.N) stakes in their joint foodtech, delivery and self-driving businesses, and increase its stake in their ride-hailing joint venture as part of a $1 billion deal.

Yandex said it will also extend its licence for the exclusive rights to use the Uber brand in Russia and several other countries until August 2030, along with the exercise of its option to buy Uber’s stake.

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