Elmo’s teledriven car receives approval for driving in Lithuania and tests cross-border teledriving

Estonian deep-tech developer Elmo, which introduced teledriving technology as a service globally last year, has received approval from the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport to commence teledriving on public roads in Lithuania. As part of the “Transport Innovation Forum,” Elmo is testing teledriving from Vilnius with a car located in Estonia. This makes Lithuania the third country to accept Elmo’s street-legal teledriven car.

“While autonomous technologies and vehicles have garnered significant attention and reshaped laws for their introduction to the streets, teledriving, ready for market use today, is gaining attention rapidly. It’s gratifying to see that Elmo has gained trust with its practical experience, and our functional technology is finding favor with both regulators and customers,” said Elmo’s founder and CEO, Enn Laansoo Jr.

In May of last year, Elmo introduced its teledriven car at the European ITS Congress in Toulouse and received an invitation to participate in the largest transport and logistics conference in the Baltic States, the “Transport Innovation Forum 2023,” held in Vilnius. Over the past year, teledriving and its technology have gained swift attention globally, even amid the rise of autonomous driving technologies. Elmo’s second-generation technology has secured street approval, accumulating over a year of service and driving on public streets.

“We have valuable experience and confidence to test cross-border teledriving at speeds exceeding 40 km/h. If the testing is successful and we accumulate sufficient kilometers, we are prepared to apply for a permit to drive without a safety driver,” added Laansoo Jr.

To date, Elmo has remotely operated its technology and gained valuable experience in 8 countries (including the USA) and over 25 cities. The company holds street-driving permits and operates its teledriving doorstep delivery service daily on public roads in Estonia and Finland. Simultaneously, Elmo is negotiating with several major cities with the goal of starting teledriving car services in at least three different countries in 2023.

In 2022, Elmo became the world’s first deep-tech company to introduce its street-legal teledriven cars and certified teledrivers from the Estonian Transport Authority into real-world car-sharing services. Elmo’s teledriven car has been driven and demonstrated to clients for technology licensing purposes in the streets of major cities such as Paris, Munich, Hanover, Zurich, Vienna, Helsinki, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, and others.

Elmo is an Estonian company primarily focused on developing innovative deep-tech technology for teledriven cars (see elmoremote.com) and offering environmentally friendly vehicle-sharing services (see elmorent.ee). Elmo is the first responsibly certified car rental company in Estonia.