Las Vegas-based startup company, Halo Car, has announced that it will remove human safety operators from behind the wheel later this year, as reported by TechCrunch.
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TOPSHOT - A driver charges his electric vehicle at a charging station as the California Independent System Operator announced a statewide electricity Flex Alert urging conservation to avoid blackouts in Monterey Park, California on August 31, 2022
This means that their vehicles will use humans to control vehicles via public streets and deliver them to its car-sharing service customers remotely. Therefore, their operations will consist of fully remote deliveries and will mark the launch of commercial operations officially. It will also kick off their campaign to scale their fleet of electric vehicles and expand beyond Las Vegas.
Investors are Excited
This approach to car-sharing has made investors very interested. In fact, Halo Car recently raised $5 million in a seed round led by At One Ventures with participation from T-Mobile Ventures, Earthshot Ventures, and Boost VC. The funds will help the company expand into cities beyond Las Vegas and scale their fleet to 1,000 EVs by the end of 2023.
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Not an Autonomous Vehicle
It's important to note that the car model of Halo Car is not autonomous, instead, it provides human assistance at all times. What makes it unique is that the company will deliver the vehicles directly to the next customer, unlike other similar companies that require customers to pick up where the car was previously parked.
The idea was developed in 2019 by the former Uber employee, now the CEO of Halo Car. Their approach may bridge the deployment of driverless cars sooner.
How It Works
The remote operators of the company will be stationed out of their Las Vegas Headquarters and will be using T-Mobile's Ultra Capacity midband 5G network and an extended range low-band 5G network to transmit video and data from vehicles to a driving simulator.
The human operator will be placed in the simulator equipped with a TV monitor, a steering wheel, pedals, and a gearshift. There will also be watched for pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, trash cans, and other obstacles when the car is in driverless mode.
Once the customer is granted access to the car via the app, the remote pilot will disconnect. When they're done, they will leave the car for the remote human operator to get and return it to headquarters where it will be cleaned, charged, and parked while it waits for its new ride.
Should the vehicle lose its connection to 5G networks, it will be brought to a full stop.
Earlier this year, the company completed its beta testing via Kia Niro EVs that were retrofitted with six cameras. During this time, support operators were inside the cars to oversee the remote piloted deliveries and were picked up and driven back to headquarters.
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Written by April Fowell
