Mercedes-Benz & Bosch launch self-driving taxi service in San Jose

Select residents of the City of San Jose, California, may now call a fully autonomous cab for a ride. There is only one car available, and a trained driver still sits inside, ready to take over the controls in case of an unforeseen situation.

The German automaker aspires not just to design a completely driverless saloon, but also to make the tech versatile enough to enable integrating it into a variety of transports. Uwe Keller, head of the Autonomous Driving Division of Daimler AG, said these cars must eventually become full-fledged traffic participants.

As it is, the only self-driving S-Class in San Jose only makes trips from the downtown to the western district and back. Furthermore, only a select few people authorized by the company to participate in the testing may call it using a dedicated mobile app.

The main goal of the project is to understand how well self-driving cars can integrate themselves into the existing urban transportation network.