Vay sends the car sharing car right to your front door – without a driver
Fabrizio Scelsi, Thomas von der Ohe and Bogdan Djukic have set up a sharing service with tele-drivers: the start-up Vay
What: Vay
The Berlin start-up Vay wants to bring car sharing and autonomous driving together. External drivers bring their cars to customers via video stream. This could compensate for a major weakness in the industry and reduce costs for the user.
IIn the car sharing sector, there have been comparatively few innovations in recent years. A Berlin start-up developed a new concept in stealth mode for three years. So-called tele-trips should gradually lead the industry towards autonomous driving.
Starting next year, Vay wants to bring electric vehicles to the streets in Europe and the USA that you no longer have to look for and park again on the street. Tele-drivers should take over the tedious work.
And remotely controlled from the respective headquarters. Customers order via the app and have the car driven to their front door. That’s the plan.
For two years now, Vay’s cars have been driving through Berlin on a test basis with a safety driver on board. The authorities are in the picture. In the next step, the watchdogs should disappear from the car and the service should be available like any other sharing service.
“We are not a taxi service”, emphasizes co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe to “Gründerszene”. It is about giving people more incentives to forego a private car because they have all the annoying tasks of car ownership taken off the company.
That should be cheaper than an Uber. The start-up does not want to be more specific about the terms yet.
No hassle looking for a parking space?
Because the cars do not have to be parked and are on their way for the next booking, overall there is not such a high density of vehicles in the parking areas. That could also relieve the parking situation.
So far, a major criticism of the car sharing model: They also fill cities with cars. “We don’t have to start with a thousand vehicles in a city in order to be able to provide good service, like other car sharing companies,” says von der Ohe.
The founder does not yet want to announce how many vehicles the start-up will have. Von der Ohe also still leaves open where Vay will begin in 2022.
One thing is certain, however: several European cities should make a start. To this end, the start-up is already in lively exchange with municipalities and states. Well-known investors have already invested 28 million euros (30 million US dollars) in the idea.
Including the VCs Atomico and Creandum. Business angels from Silicon Valley are also involved. The contacts came about through von der Ohe, among other things.
In 2010 he founded Pockettaxi and then went to the USA to study at Stanford and work in the Valley. After six years in Silicon Valley, he moved back to Berlin to found Vay in 2018.
Fabrizio Scelsi provided the hardware know-how. In Aachen, he was jointly responsible for the launch of the street scooter as technical manager. The third member of the group, Bogdan Djukic, comes from the software sector. He previously worked as a developer for Microsoft and Skype.
When the tele-driver takes over the wheel
Autonomous driving has been a trending topic for a long time, and the first commercial services have been announced for this year. Due to technical and regulatory hurdles, nothing has come of it so far. That is why Vay relies on tele-drivers.
They are certified and specially trained in practice and theory, so von der Ohe. The tele-drivers sit in front of screens, they get the street scene streamed and steer the car to the customer.
You must take an alcohol test before starting your shift. You cannot drive too fast and fatigue is also monitored. The additional security mechanisms are necessary so that the service can be offered smoothly in road traffic, says the founder.
That is why there is also a 360-degree view around the car so that there are no blind spots when turning. If there is a power failure in the control center, the emergency batteries switch on.
“We have a permit with a safety driver in the car throughout Germany,” says the Vay founder. In the coming year, only tele-drivers and customers will take over the wheel. “These are regulatory challenges.”
But von der Ohe is confident that his sharing service will take the first step towards more autonomous driving. He’s already thinking out loud in the direction of the truck. But first private vehicles should be on the agenda.
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