Driverless robotaxis have long been seen as an early application for autonomous vehicles, yet developers have found the concept hard to get off the ground on public roads. However, a new halfway house solution could see a driverless transport solution hit the road as early as next year. 

German technology company, Vay, has been testing remote-controlled electric vehicles in Berlin and has plans to make a service commercially available in both Europe and the US. It will be something of a combination of autonomous taxi, self drive and Uber. 

Customers would use an app to order a remote controlled car, drive themselves to their destination and then the vehicle would be driven to a pick up point or the next customer by a human driver remotely in the company’s control hub. Drivers would operate the cars with near normal controls, plus 360-degree monitors. This would remove a significant element of cost, as drivers would not need to be with the cars continuously. 

Vay’s, CEO Thomas von der Ohe, says, "We're launching next year, not in five years, with services that have huge benefits over what is out there." Der Ohe also points out that development costs of the concept are a fraction of what they would be if it was full autonomy and it can establish the brand quickly and provide vital data that would help them to gradually introduce more autonomous features. 

While the Vay technology may now be operational, there will be further hurdles to overcome before we see these remote control vehicles on the streets. These include convincing regulators on safety issues, sorting out the complexities of insurance and raising enough money to fund the roll out.