Nice glide
Zeekr has been working on an autonomous driving taxi van for over a year now, together with Google sister company Waymo. The fact that the van is not yet ready and that it does not drive completely independently is evident from these new spy photos.
At the end of 2021, the Chinese Zeekr and American Waymo presented a taxi van without a steering wheel. Zeekr, sister brand of Polestar and Lynk & Co, among others, will take care of production, while Waymo will provide the technology needed to make the van self-driving. About a year ago, a testing prototype of the as-yet unnamed van surfaced in Europe. It still had a steering wheel and even mirrors, so autonomous driving was clearly out of the question. We are now a year later and little has changed in that regard.
In these new photos, we see the creation, possibly called ‘Robotaxi’, in the Swedish freezing cold in a way you wouldn’t expect. Not only is the van still being driven by someone, it is even being drifted through a bend. It therefore seems very likely that a fully autonomous version will take longer and that the van will initially just need a driver and will be marketed with steering wheel, side mirrors and windshield wipers. A big difference with the prototype spotted last year is the battery of sensors and Lidars on the roof. This specific example may still be used for testing autonomous driving.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl