A German remote-driving firm is aiming to make private car ownership a thing of the past. From December Germany will allow Vay to operate its fleet of remote-controlled rental cars.
This is how it works – having been summoned by a few clicks in an app, the electric car slows to a halt outside the former cargo hall of Berlin’s now defunct Tegel airport, reports The Guardian. No one is at the wheel, but upon a passenger stepping inside, a voice announces: “This is Bartek, I am your driver today. Please buckle up and we can be on our way.”
The car emits a friendly jingle, then makes its way to the former runway, where it performs a fault-free manoeuvre around a route marked by traffic cones.
This is not your standard driverless car, however, as “Bartek” is not the automated voice of a robotaxi but a human being called Bartek Sztendel, a very real man sitting several hundred metres away at a remote driving station.
In a high-back leather chair, he operates the car by pressing foot pedals and turning a steering wheel, while monitoring the drive on three large screens in front of him, captured by the car’s four discreet rooftop cameras. Headphones feed him the sounds from inside and outside the car, and sensors enable him even to feel any bumps in the road.
Sztendel works for Vay (the name is a humorous mimicking of how “way” is pronounced in Germany), a remote-driving tech company set up in Berlin in 2018 with the aim of revolutionising mobility in Europe’s cities.
Vay’s co-founder Thomas Von der Ohe said his goal was to make private car ownership redundant and cities more sustainable “by persuading people to not buy the second or even the first car”.
Aside from its engineers, the company’s most valuable asset and biggest cost are its drivers. Despite an overall skills shortage, attracting recruits to this new profession has so far not been a problem.
Many controllers have reportedly been recruited from Uber, as well as from more conventional taxi companies – especially female drivers “who have described horrible knife attacks and facing other safety concerns”, according to von der Ohe. Truck drivers fed up with driving long distances and being away from their families.
“People see this as a job of the future. They get bathroom breaks and lunch breaks, they get to work in a team rather than on their own,” said von der Ohe. They also earn by the hour, not by the ride.
Sztendel, who comes from Poland, clocked up several hundred miles of driving over a period of weeks before qualifying as a remote driver. He said those with gaming experience were more quickly able to pick up the initial skills required, though this did not count as much as “the ability to stay calm and having a strong sense of safety and responsibility”. He enjoyed playing online racing games such as Need for Speed, he said, but to be remotely controlling a real car on the road, “is quite mind-blowing”.
(Pic: Vay)
