Driverless Peugeot cars will soon be on Singapore’s roads as part of a trial, following a pact Wednesday between its French manufacturer Groupe PSA and Singapore-based start-up nuTonomy.
By September, two Peugeot 3008 autonomous cars will be on the streets in one-north, nuTonomy told The Business Times, with about a dozen planned to be in operation by the beginning of 2018.
nuTonomy will install its software, along with sensors and computing platforms, into the customised Peugeot vehicles.
The partnership will allow both companies to further study autonomous vehicle (AV) system performance, said both companies in a joint statement.
“This collaboration will enable us to offer different mobility solutions to our customers,” said PSA’s head of its business lab Anne Laliron.
Both companies will work together to make the concept of self-driving PSA cars “more and more concrete”, she added.
nuTonomy, a company spun off from leading US research university MIT, has been conducting public trials of an on-demand AV mobility service in Singapore since August last year. The self-drive cars operate in one-north, the AV testing area designated by the Land Transport Authority.
The start-up’s chief executive officer Karl Iagnemma also expressed confidence in working with PSA to achieve their goal of deploying a “safe, efficient, fully autonomous mobility-on-demand transportation service” suitable for cities.
The companies will consider expanding on-road testing to other major cities following the initial phase of this partnership.
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