Vay, a startup that made a teleoperated breakthrough in car-sharing in Berlin and Las Vegas, is expanding into commercial and business-to-business services supported by recent deals with French carmaker Peugeot and Belgium-based Poppy.
Vay is not a traditional ride-hailing or car-sharing startup, nor does it operate a robotaxi service. Yet when customers in Las Vegas or Berlin open the Vay app and hail a car, it arrives without a human behind the wheel.
The Berlin startup, which was founded in 2019 and has raised around $110 million to date, has developed teleoperation technology that allows employees sitting in an office to drive empty vehicles to customers. When the Vay vehicle arrives, the customer jumps in and takes manual control of the car. Customers are taken to their destination. Once finished, the teleops pilot returns the vehicle.
The new business-to-business division is a bet on what co-founder and CEO Thomas von der Ohe thinks is the future of mobility, he told TechCrunch.
“This is what we predict the future of vehicles will look like,” he said. “Just click a button, get a van or truck or private vehicle to be activated by teledrive.”
Von der Ohe said tele-driving technology is so cheap from a capital expenditure perspective, he expects that in five to 10 years, every type of vehicle that rolls off the production line will be teleop-enabled, leveraging cameras ADAS that are already. on the vehicle.
This is where Vay hopes to drive business and market share. The expansion, led by a task force in the company’s business development team led by Chief Business Officer Justin Spratt, aims to be a sort of AWS for vehicle fleets. This means that Vay provides the teledriving platform for car manufacturers, car sharing and rental companies, trucks, luxury/telechauffeuring, and delivery and logistics.
The company has already landed two deals. Earlier this year, Vay announced a partnership with Peugeot to test how an E-308 electric van equipped with tele-driving technology could work. Vay is also exploring use cases for the luxury OEM market. The company says this could include telechauffeuring, where vehicle owners can drive themselves to a social event before being conveniently teledriven home.
Vay has also landed a deal with Belgian car-sharing company Poppy to test its teleops technology on its fleet. Von der Ohe said other high-profile clients will be announced soon.
From von der Ohe’s perspective, Vay creates a new category of mobility designed for customers who want flexibility and to avoid the hassle of parking a vehicle. This is a niche group, but von der Ohe argues that the startup has some traction.
Vay launched in Las Vegas earlier this year with two Kia Niro EVs. Since then, the startup has grown to 15 vehicles and expanded its operating area to encompass approximately 25% of Las Vegas, including parts of North Las Vegas and Spring Hill. Vay has made 3,000 trips to Vegas since its launch in January 2024 and is growing by 20% month on month. The results have been positive enough that Vay is now investing in a larger fleet with plans to have 100 vehicles in the next six to nine months, von der Ohe said.
Price has been a key driver of these results. Von der Ohe said Vay guarantees that its driverless car sharing trips are half the price of a ride offered by Uber and Lyft. This price guarantee has helped attract repeat customers – many of whom are local residents and commuters. That competitive price cut into his bottom line, though.
Von der Ohe said that the company can reach profitability scaling – and especially without having thousands of vehicles in its fleet. He also said that they can adjust the price to reach profitability faster, although this is not the plan for now.
“We would like to keep that 50% cheaper highway statement, but we don’t need to if we decide to focus everything on profitability,” he said. “We believe that only 20% or 30% cheaper than the next best alternative would be a sufficient value proposition for the customer.”