
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF
- Dubai’s government have now got everything they need to create the world’s first, full end to end autonomous transportation network
A little over a year ago Dubai Future’s Foundation and Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced they were committed to seeing at least 25% of all of the kingdom’s journeys become autonomous by 2030, and ever since they’ve been investing heavily to build out the world’s first truly autonomous end to end autonomous transportation network that includes the world’s first Hyperloop network, a Mach 1.0 train, and the world’s first autonomous sky taxi service which will start service this coming July.
Now, to complete the next part of the jigsaw puzzle they’ve just announced that they’ve signed a contract with Tesla for 200 self-driving Model S and Model X “limousines.”
Once delivered the cars will be integrated into the Dubai Taxi Corporation’s fleet, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk inked the deal with the RTA at the World Government Summit in Dubai earlier this week on the same day his company began selling its electric cars in Dubai, which marks its first foray into the Middle East.
While the new vehicles won’t be self-driving straight off the bat they’ll have all the hardware they need, and once Tesla have fully tested and approved their autonomous software, which looks set to happen within the next three months, the cars will have their firmware updated to enable full autonomy.