Driverless car company Vay moving into Las Vegas

Las Vegas is set to host another driverless car company as Vay, a Germany-based firm, announced it will use the city as the launchpad for its U.S. operations.

Vay has opened an office in the Arts District, in Las Vegas’ International Innovation Center, according to a news release from the company. The center offers working space for up-and-coming technology companies.

Vay offers a remotely-driven vehicle delivery and rental system where customers can order a Vay electric vehicle from its app and have it remotely piloted to them by a teledriver. Customers can then physically drive themselves to their destination, and the teledriver takes over the vehicle after its been dropped off. Vay said this eliminates the need for drivers to spend time looking for a parking space.

Offering a similar model, Halo.Car, a Las Vegas-based company, announced in June its commercial launch and removal of safety drivers from its vehicles in downtown. Another automonous vehicle company, Foster City, California-based Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, also recently announced that its driverless robotaxis have been driving on public roads in Nevada since June 16. The driverless cars are transporting Zoox employees, operating on a one-mile loop, at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, around the company’s offices in the southwest part of the Las Vegas Valley.

Vay already has offices open in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany and Portland, Oregon.

Details of Vay’s U.S. operations, such as when its vehicles will be on Nevada roads or how many markets in the U.S. it will operate in, are still being figured out, said Anja Rechsteiner, the director of communications for Vay.

“We have just opened our office in Las Vegas and plan to explore the U.S. market from there,” Rechsteiner said in an emailed statement. “We want to start with a small number of vehicles and gradually expand our fleet.”

Vay has been test-driving its cars on roads in Germany for the past four years and removed its safety drivers from some of its European vehicles. It said it is the first company in Europe to remove safety drivers.

Rechsteiner said Vay wanted a presence in Nevada because it has “ideal conditions” for the company to deploy its technology and having an office in Las Vegas is an “important step” in launching its U.S. operations.

“We are excited to enter the U.S. mobility market,” Thomas von der Ohe, Vay’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “The market is ready and the responses we have received so far from regulators, city governments, and potential customers in the U.S. show that it’s a very dynamic market that we will be exploring in the near future.”

Many companies have used Nevada to test their vehicle technology because of a state law passed in 2011 that allows for autonomous vehicles to operate on state roadways.

The city of Las Vegas even actively pitches itself on the Intenational Innovation Center website as a destination for companies to develop their technology and lists mobility as one of the six main priority areas for attracting companies to the city.

“We’re more than excited to have Vay setting up their US operations here in Las Vegas,” said Michael Sherwood, the chief innovation and technology officer for the city of Las Vegas, in a statement. “They are part of a growing mobility and technology ecosystem that we are investing in and building in the city that we expect to have international impact both as an employer of top global talent, but also increasing the mobility options for tourists, and residents alike.”

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on Twitter.