Skip to Content
Smart cities

New York City’s first self-driving shuttle service launches today

August 7, 2019
A driverless shuttle vehicle in New York City's Brooklyn Navy Yard
A driverless shuttle vehicle in New York City's Brooklyn Navy YardAssociated Press

Six autonomous six-seater shuttles will be offering free rides around a one-mile loop of New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard.

If you can make it here ... : It’s the first driverless car service to launch in the Big Apple (most trials in the US have taken place in Arizona). The yard offers rides on a set loop in a predictable environment, though, so we’re still a long way from setting the technology free in the famously chaotic streets of Manhattan.

That said: It’s a first step. The cars are being operated by Optimus Ride, a company that spun out of MIT in 2015. The service will operate continuously between 7 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. every weekday.

Falling out of love: The hype around fully autonomous vehicles has subsided, as the breathless promises of launches in 2020 hit the hard reality of complexity and failure. A woman was killed by a self-driving car being tested by Uber last year, and three Tesla drivers have died while relying on their autopilot systems. So what, say the technology’s boosters? People are killed every day by human drivers. That’s true. But the reality is that most people are still reluctant to trust machines to drive them, and there’s a long way to go to persuade them otherwise. 

Sign up here for our daily newsletter The Download to get your dose of the latest must-read news from the world of emerging tech.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build

“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”

Meet the people who use Notion to plan their whole lives

The workplace tool’s appeal extends far beyond organizing work projects. Many users find it’s just as useful for managing their free time.

Learning to code isn’t enough

Historically, learn-to-code efforts have provided opportunities for the few, but new efforts are aiming to be inclusive.

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google

Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.