Aptiv's self-driving cars hit 50,000 ride milestone in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — With the exception of the lettering, Aptiv's self-driving cars look like typical 5-Series BMW's. But inside, passengers get to watch, in real-time, what the car sees through its 21 sensors.

"10 Lidars, 9 Radars, and 2 vision systems," Abe Ghabra said.

Ghabra is the Managing Director for Aptiv in Las Vegas.

For the past year, the company has had autonomous vehicles operating in Las Vegas, mostly on the Strip.

Their fleet currently offers ride-sharing options through Lyft, as users have the option to request the self-driving cars if they'd like to.

"Just like you'd see economy, lux, XL, you'd see another option that says self-driving," he said.

The numbers show people are selecting the option a lot. In the company's first year in Las Vegas, they had 50,000 rides.

While many folks are uneasy about the idea of driverless cars, Ghabra says he thinks more people will come around as the technology continues to advance.

"Unlike a human driver, it's never going to be distracted, it's never going to be drunk, it's never going to look away from the road," he said.

However, for the time being, two human-operators will sit in the driver's seat and front seat for the rides. One person will focus solely on the road and would be ready to intervene and switch the car into manual driving mode if a situation were to present itself that would require that.

The next item on the agenda, according to Ghabra, test out the autonomous cars without the human "drivers."