Nuro is testing its autonomous car skills on the streets of Tokyo

OnlySilicon Valley startups sponsored by NvidiaUber, with SoftBank, is testing its autonomous car technology in Japan.

Toyota Prius cars equipped with the Nuro self-driving software – and a public safety driver behind the wheel as backup – began testing on public roads in Tokyo last month. The trial marks the first overseas expansion to begin with, where he raised his business two years ago.

Nuro said that testing in Japan brings with it a number of new challenges and different types of driving and regulations. For example, cars drive on the left side of the road, and Tokyo’s streets are crowded. Road signs and road markings are also different in Japan. The company, which opened offices in Tokyo last August, did not say how many test vehicles it has in its fleet or when it will remove the public safety driver from the vehicles.

The company hinted, in a blog post announcing the testing in Japan, that there would be an expansion in the future.

“Our independent operations in Tokyo are the beginning of the benefits of being deployed around the world,” the company wrote.

Nuro, founded in 2016 by Google self-driving experts Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, initially focused on developing and operating a fleet of high-speed road bots. The appearance of Nuro and his parents was influenced by the SoftBank Vision Fund, which invested $940 million starting in 2019.

Nuro had an amazing start, but development costs and massive integration forced the company to cut staff and review its business model. In 2024, it gave up on low-level bots and decided to offer its technology to automakers and travel agents, such as ride-hailing and delivery companies.

The company’s autonomy is built on a proprietary AI model that allows the system to learn its own behavior, according to Nuro. This AI technique, which it calls “zero-zero autonomous driving,” allowed the Nuro app to navigate Tokyo’s public roads without any previous training on Japanese traffic, the company’s post said. A launch from UK Wave, which recently earned $1.2 billionhas taken a similar last-ditch AI approach to its self-driving software.

Nuro says that this AI method, which is designed to be comprehensive, does not mean that it neglects safety. The company said it conducts non-lockdown tests on each model independently and evaluates performance and tests side cases using simulations. Autonomous vehicles are on the road, controlled manually while the Nuro software works “in the shadows.” Nuro said the basic version of AI creates what the software can do, but the commands aren’t sent to the car’s controls.

Nuro looks at the results to determine if the system is ready to operate independently on public roads.

Nuro has gained interest and investors thanks to its self-driven approach. Last year, Nuro raised $203 million in two rounds in the Series E round that included Baillie Gifford and new investors Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures. Uber, which has said it will invest “several hundred million dollars” in Nuro as part of the investment. a lot of information and electric car maker Lucid, also participated.