Dubai prepares for driverless future with order for 4000 autonomous Cruise taxis

Dubai is stepping up its plans to become the first city in the world where autonomous vehicles are a regular site on roads with an order for 4000 vehicles from Cruise, the American driverless technology company. The vehicles are intended to become a fleet of driverless robo-taxis the futuristic city is planning to launch in 2023.

The Cruise deal, announced in a tweet from controversial Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed, is a solid step towards Dubai’s commitment for at least 25% of the city’s transport to be fully autonomous by 2030 – less than a decade away. The Crown Prince described the deal with the U.S. technology company as “the first of its kind worldwide between a government entity and a leading developer of autonomous vehicles”.

Dubai has a particularly prevalent taxi culture and the city’s fleet of traditional taxis is 11,000 strong. Dubai taxis are typically driven by immigrant workers and rides can be considered cheap in an international context despite the general cost of living in the city being high. There is little in the way of a public transport network.

But Dubai’s ambitious de-facto ruler has a futuristic bent and is determined to move from a taxi service built on cheap immigrant labour to one powered by the latest technology in the world. The city also has ambitions to become the first to offer a regular flying taxi service and in 2017 established a partnership with German start-up Volocopter, which is currently trialling its technology in the city.

Cruise is the autonomous vehicles unit of U.S. automakers General Motors and was valued at $30 billion during a $2 billion fundraising round earlier this year. GM itself acquired Cruise for just $1 billion in 2016. The start-up employed just 40 staff at the time. The Dubai deal marks its first sales of the all-electric driverless Origin model it has developed. The vehicle was first revealed early last year.

The car has neither steering wheel nor driver’s seat so does not include the option for a human driver to take control in an emergency as most other vehicles incorporating driverless technology still do. But that does provide more space and the Origin can carry up to six passengers. The vehicle’s design is intended to encourage pooled rides, reducing costs for passengers and alleviating congestion in crowded urban environments.

Mohammed Al Tayer, chairman of Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority noted in press release that the city selected Cruise as its supplier ahead of rivals because the GM unit is better placed to scale production.

Many other autonomous vehicle start-ups don’t have the advantage of General Motors’ scaled production and supply lines. They will have to be adapted from those used for traditional vehicles but the underlying infrastructure and know-how is already in place.

A press release by Mr Al Tayer read:

“Cruise’s technology, resources, purpose-built vehicle, automaker partnerships, approach to safe testing and deployment, and strategy give them the ability to launch safely and faster than any other company.”

The deal will also see Cruise establish a new unit based in Dubai which will be “fully responsible for the deployment, operation and maintenance of the fleet”.

The unit will have an exclusive agreement to operate autonomous taxi fleets in Dubai until at least 2029.

So far the only driverless taxi service open to the public is a test service being run by Google’s autonomous vehicles unit Waymo in Scottsdale Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. The vehicles are obliged to stick to pre-defined routes. Dubai’s Cruise deal and the intention to launch fully driverless services within just 2 years suggests the city will take a light regulatory touch.