Vay :: Driverless Transportation That Combines Remote Human Driving With Advanced Artificial Intelligence

Vay is a pioneering mobility technology company founded in 2018 and headquartered in Berlin, Germany. The company has developed a unique hybrid approach to driverless transportation that combines remote human driving with advanced artificial intelligence. Vay operates a commercial on-demand rental car service in Las Vegas, Nevada, where users can summon electric vehicles through a mobile app. These vehicles are delivered directly to the customer by professionally trained remote drivers or picked up by the user. After the user drives the car themselves for errands, commuting, or leisure, they can end the trip by parking in a designated service zone and walking away, at which point a remote driver takes over to reposition or park the vehicle. This model eliminates many traditional costs associated with car ownership or ride-hailing, delivering rentals at approximately half the price of services like Uber or Lyft while providing greater flexibility such as renting by the minute, making multiple stops, and avoiding parking hassles.

At the core of Vay’s robot-based products and services is its proprietary remote driving technology. The system features a sophisticated Remote Driving Station equipped with a full automotive-grade steering wheel, pedals, and controls that meet the highest industry safety standards (including compliance with ISO 26262 and ISO/SAE 21434). Remote drivers operate vehicles in real time using multiple live video feeds, in-vehicle and surrounding audio captured through microphones, and high-quality sensor data transmitted over advanced, multi-network 5G and cellular connectivity with end-to-end encryption. Vehicles are fitted with custom proprietary hardware that executes commands reliably and includes multiple layers of redundancy. In the event of connection loss, fail-safe protocols automatically bring the vehicle to a safe stop. This remote driving capability allows Vay to offer fully driverless delivery and retrieval today, creating a practical bridge toward greater autonomy.

Vay takes a distinctive hybrid path to full autonomy rather than pursuing completely driverless systems from the outset. The company leverages remote driving sessions to collect massive amounts of high-quality real-world data, which is used to train end-to-end AI driving models. This embodied AI approach, sometimes described as Autonomy 2.0, combines human judgment for complex, unpredictable scenarios with machine learning for routine tasks like lane following or stop-and-go traffic. Remote drivers can also serve as safety supervisors, providing reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). The system is primarily camera-based with redundant lidar and radar perception, eliminating the need for expensive HD maps. This gradual rollout strategy significantly reduces hardware costs, R&D risks, and time-to-market compared to traditional rule-based autonomy approaches. The technology has been validated through commercial operations in Las Vegas with a growing fleet of over 175 electric vehicles and a dedicated Remote Driving Center.

Beyond its consumer app-based rental service, Vay offers B2B and partnership solutions for autonomous vehicle developers, trucking companies, private car owners, car-share and rental fleets, light commercial vehicles, and public transport operators. Its remote driving platform can close the last-mile gaps for autonomous trucks, reposition shared vehicles, enable premium driverless experiences for privately owned cars, and optimize fleet utilization while reducing labor and operational costs. The company has raised over $200 million from prominent investors including Coatue, Atomico, General Catalyst, Kinnevik, Grab, and notable individuals such as former F1 champion Nico Rosberg and ex-Alphabet CFO Patrick Pichette. Endorsed by AI pioneer Prof. Dr. Sebastian Thrun, Vay’s approach is designed to scale safely and commercially while continuously improving its AI models through real customer usage.

With a team of more than 200 professionals blending Silicon Valley software expertise and European automotive engineering, Vay is actively expanding its operations, hiring across engineering, AI, safety, and operations roles. The service has received strong customer feedback for its convenience, cleanliness, cost savings, and seamless experience. By making driverless mobility practical and affordable today, Vay is not only disrupting traditional car rental and ride-hailing but also laying a robust foundation for the future of autonomous transportation. Its robot-based remote driving systems represent a pragmatic, data-rich stepping stone that accelerates the safe adoption of AI-powered mobility at scale.