Singapore to test self-driving car fleet

If you find yourself traveling in Singapore next year, don't be shocked when you book an Audi taxi with no driver.

Delphi Automotive, an Auto electronics supplier headquartered in the UK, announced on Monday that it is selected by authorities in Singapore to begin public tests of automated taxis next year, hoping to launch a fully automated taxi service in Singapore by 2022. A fleet of six self-driving Audi SQ5s will be deployed in the early tests, covering a total of about 8 km.

Initially, the cars will have drivers in case of emergencies, but the human drivers will be phased out by 2019.

To address the increasing problems of traffic congestion, Singapore launched an initiative to advance autonomous vehicle research in 2014, which apparently sped up the research and deployment of self-driving cars in the country.

Glen DeVos, vice president of engineering for Delphi, says that the program in Singapore will also provide invaluable insight into how people use the vehicle.

"For these systems to be successful, people have to be excited about using them," he noted, "We don' t tend to talk about how consumer feels about it. You have to implement it in a way that consumer feels excited to use." Endi