Yandex to deploy up to 1,000 self-driving cars in the next two years

Russian Internet Giant, Yandex, plans to expand the testing of autonomous vehicles by deploying almost 1,000 vehicles within the next two years.

Currently Yandex has a fleet of 90 self-driving vehicles which it hopes to increase to 100 by the end of the year. Of these vehicles, 35 operate on the streets of Moscow in the presence of a Yandex engineer. The expansion of the fleet is expected to aid the testing of the algorithm changes that the company is constantly making as a part of the development process.

A research published by HSBC Bank earlier this year claimed that Yandex's self-driving technology is at par with its global competitors and was quickly catching up with Waymo, the autonomous driving unit of Alphabet. Although there is no official confirmation, it is estimated that each autonomous vehicle developed by the company costs around RUB6.5 million ($97,500).

Yandex entered the autonomous driving market in 2016 and began testing its first vehicles in 2017. The company currently conducts tests at the Skolkovo and Innopolis tech parks Russia. It has also received permission to test autonomous vehicles in Israel. Yandex is in constant efforts to make the possibility of carrying out tests in the US a reality, since the regulations on autonomous driving are far more relaxed in the country.