Self-driving vehicles have become a common sight in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there are more companies looking to deploy their autonomous vehicles to public riders in the coming months.
Earlier this year, ride-hailing giant Uber, electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors and autonomous vehicle company Nuro unveiled the Lucid Gravity robotaxi, the result of a three-way partnership announced last year. I got an early look at what the companies have deemed the “industry’s most luxurious robotaxi” at CES in January, but the vehicle was parked inside a conference hall.
Last week, Nuro invited me to swing by its headquarters in Mountain View, California, to take a ride in one of its engineering prototype vehicles — with a safety driver onboard — as the companies aim for a public launch later this year…