Las Vegas company’s concept is halfway between a rideshare and a rental car – Las Vegas Sun News

On a cloudy morning in downtown Las Vegas, a white Kia e-Niro pulls up to the corner of South Main Street and East Coolidge Avenue, just down the street from the famous Snowball the cat art installation.

After the passengers climb inside the empty car, remote driver Yulieanna Duran welcomes them and from there allows them to take the wheel — a first-of-its-kind service in the region.

Vay, which last year launched its first commercial fleet in Las Vegas, is expanding its fleet of local vehicles with hopes of ushering in a new wave of transportation with its remote driving hybrid services.

“We actually see this world where we might not have to have your own personal car anymore, or at least, in a household, maybe you don’t need a second car,” said Thomas von der Ohe, Vay co-founder and CEO. “This is our first deployment; it’s the first in the world and in this mobility category, and we want to show the world how successful and exciting this can be.”

Over six years ago, von der Ohe, with co-founders Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic, were in California’s Silicon Valley working on autonomous vehicles while looking for a way to complement this driverless technology.

That’s when Vay was born.

Through the Vay application, users can rent a car from the electric fleet to use for up to 12 hours a day.

A remote driver controls the vehicle to the user’s requested pickup spot, where the person will then take the wheel themselves. Customers can use the car for a single trip or make multiple stops during the day, using an app on their phone to lock the vehicle.

Once the user is finished, they can let their remote driver know through the app, and the Vay staffmember will navigate the vehicle back to the company’s lot.

Remote drivers sit at Vay’s headquarters in downtown Las Vegas at a station with pedals, a steering wheel, a headset and three large monitors showing the street view around the car. Each Vay vehicle is installed with special hardware and technology to help the remote driver.

The ride is designed to be half the price of a rideshare or taxicab, von der Ohe said.

Vay’s services were first tested around the UNLV area to see if there was a demand, and von der Ohe quickly saw a need — from students who can’t afford their own cars to large families that don’t have enough vehicles to support everyone’s daily activities.

Since officially launching last year, people have taken more than 6,000 trips using Vay’s electric vehicle fleet, many of them repeat users whom von der Ohe referred to as “power drivers.”

Erin Breen, director of UNLV’s Road Equity Alliance Project, told the Sun in a previous interview that she’s had interactions with Vay before, and called the company concept “really intriguing.”

She added that, while remote driving won’t solve other problems related to human drivers, such as intoxicated driving, they do take the stress of parking away and add another layer to Southern Nevada’s transportation network.

“I think that they kind of address the people that are saying, ‘I’m not getting in the cars that a person’s not driving,’ so it drives to you autonomously and then you drive it,” Breen said of Vay. “It’s not going to help with drunk driving, but it helps with not having to park a car and the whole ecology portion of transportation.”

Nevada law calls for a human operator at the wheel of an autonomous vehicle if it’s being tested or operated on a highway. Crashes resulting in personal injury or property damage estimated to exceed $750 must be reported to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.

Vay joins a few other companies racing to push out cars without drivers in the front seat.

Autonomous vehicle company Zoox announced in early November that it would test its robotaxis on the Strip, preparing to one day allow its driverless cars to transport tourists and locals along the boulevard.

But Vay was not created to compete with completely driverless robotaxis, von der Ohe pointed out.

To increase their services, Vay has acquired an 8,500-square-foot production facility in Henderson that will allow it to outfit up to 16 Kia e-Niros a week with the necessary cameras, computers, wiring and other equipment to support the remote driving.

Von der Ohe said the company is aiming to increase its vehicle fleet to 100 cars this year and will gradually roll them out for the next six to nine months.

It’s a move that will not only serve more residents and visitors of Las Vegas, but provide more jobs to the local economy. The company is “actively hiring” remote drivers to support its growing fleet of cars. It has 15 remote drivers on its 150-person staff.

While looking out the window at a crowded street and parking lot near Vay’s downtown office, von der Ohe laid out his hopes for the future — one where Vay was helping reduce local emissions and the need for multicar households or expansive parking lots across the valley.

“We’d encourage even more users to come and test our service and really, with us, together, kind of create this mobility of the future, because it’s happening and there’s nobody else in the world anywhere where this service exists,” von der Ohe said. “We’re now all part of shaping a future of how people will move in cities, so we want to do this here in Las Vegas, and then with this success here … bring this to multiple cities in the U.S. and also Europe.”

grace.darocha@gmg vegas.com / 702-948-7854 / @gracedarocha