HAMBURG, Germany – German company Vay has become the first company to deploy a vehicle without a human being inside on a European public road, a milestone the start-up says paves the way for a remote-controlled mobility service within months.

Vay is pitching “teledriving”, which involves humans remote-controlling autos from physical steering stations miles away, as an intermediate step to full autonomy. Expectations of an imminent roll-out of a large number of robocars have deflated, even after investors have bet some US$100 billion (S$133 billion) on the technology.

The company said on Tuesday it has started to teledrive on predefined routes in Hamburg after the port city granted a permit. While Vay had been testing the technology for more than three years, it was required to have a safety driver inside its modified Kia electric vehicles.

A teledriver drives the car directly to the customer – remotely controlled from the teledrive centre. Teledrivers sit at a teledrive station in Hamburg with all the necessary controls. Upon arrival of the car, the customer then physically drives themselves to their destination. Once the customer has arrived at their destination, a teledriver takes over the vehicle once again, meaning the time-consuming search for a parking space is eliminated.

“We will now be working with authorities on the next steps to offering this service to externals,” chief executive officer Thomas von der Ohe, who previously worked at self-driving startup Zoox, told Bloomberg News.

“So we should be talking months and not years.”

Vay’s service is based on teledrivers delivering electric vehicles to customers who would hop in and drive themselves to their desired destination. Teledrivers would then steer the vehicles to the next client. The startup has collected around US$100 million from investors including former Google chief financial officer Patrick Pichette, Kinnevik and venture capital firm Atomico. BLOOMBERG