Toyota Prius vehicles equipped with Nuro's self-driving software ' and human safety operators behind the wheel as backup ' began testing on public roads in Tokyo last month. The testing marks the first overseas expansion for the startup, which upended its business model two years ago. Nuro said testing in Japan introduces a number of new challenges and different driving styles and rules. For instance, vehicles drive on the left side of the road, and Tokyo's streets have dense traffic. Road signs and lane markings are also different in Japan. The company, which opened offices in Tokyo last August, did not disclose how many test vehicles are in its fleet or when it might remove the human safety operator from the vehicles. Nuro, founded in 2016 by early Google self-driving project engineers Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, initially focused on developing and operating a fleet of low-speed, on-road delivery bots. Nuro's pitch and pedigree got the attention of SoftBank Vision Fund, which...
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