- Vay aims to launch a safe, affordable and sustainable door-to-door mobility service in the US, Germany and beyond
- Vay adds legal mobility experience to prepare for a commercial launch
- Claire Eagan has been an attorney at Uber for the past 7 years and was most recently Senior Counsel, Product & Strategy
Berlin/Las Vegas, September 11th, 2023. Vay, the leading teledriving company, has announced a new addition to its legal team: Claire Eagan starts as Director Legal. For the past 7 years, she has been with Uber, where she served in varying roles and most recently as Senior Counsel, Product & Strategy. Claire will be based in the US, where Vay recently opened an office in Las Vegas to explore the US market from there. Early 2023, Vay became the first company to drive a car with no one inside on European public streets.
At Uber, Claire held the position of Senior Counsel within the Safety Core Services Team, where her primary focus was on addressing incidents related to the platform as well as advising the business on new features within the app, new partnerships, and potential new lines of business with an eye towards risk mitigation. At Vay, she brings her knowledge of the tech mobility space and will be responsible for the US launch of Vay from a legal perspective while overseeing Vay’s global legal team.
“Having been in the mobility space for many years, I know Vay will change the way people move around their cities and the world, and I knew I could use my experience to help bring it to market – I had to be a part of it”, Claire explains why she joined Vay. Claire will work closely with the inhouse legal team as well as external law firms in Germany and the US.
Claire received her Bachelor of Arts from the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where she grew up, before moving to Chicago to attend University of Illinois, Chicago School of Law. While in school, Claire sought a variety of experiences and was a judicial extern for the Honorable Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan of the Northern District of Illinois as well as a law clerk in the legal department of the Oakland Raiders. After school, Claire entered the courtroom working as an attorney in several Chicago-based law firms before joining Uber in 2016
Thomas von der Ohe, Vay’s co-founder and CEO:
“We are excited to welcome Claire as we navigate our transition into a commercial business. Given our ambitious plans for the US market, her experience in handling some of the most complex and challenging litigation within our industry holds immense value. I can’t wait to work with Claire on our next steps to launch our mobility service.”
Teledriving (remote driving) technology
Vay is developing an alternative approach to autonomous driving called teledriving. The teledriving technology enables a person (“teledriver”) to control a vehicle remotely. Teledrivers sit at a teledrive station with a steering wheel, pedals and all necessary operation devices developed according to automotive industry standards. The visual perception is reproduced via camera sensors and transmitted to the screens of the teledrive station. Road traffic sounds, such as emergency vehicles and other warning signals, are transmitted via microphones to the teledriver’s headphones.
Early 2023, Vay became the first company to drive a car with no one inside on European public streets. Vay achieved this by remotely driving (teledriving) cars. Vay aims to launch a safe, affordable and sustainable door-to-door mobility service in the US, Germany and beyond. Vay plans to remotely deliver and return electric cars for its customers to create more liveable cities around the world.
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About Vay
Vay was the first company to drive a car without a person inside on a public road in Europe, enabled by teledriving (e.g. remote driving) technology. Vay aims to launch a sustainable, affordable, door-to-door mobility service with remotely driven (“teledriven”) cars: Teledrivers bring an electric car to the customer and pick it up after the journey is completed, eliminating the time-consuming search for a parking spot for the customer. While in the car, the customers drive themselves. Vay sees teledriving as an alternative approach to autonomous driving and aims to gradually introduce autonomous functions in its system based on high-quality teledrive data.
Vay was founded in Berlin in 2018 by Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic. Vay’s team of 150+ people combines the best of two worlds – software & product experience from Silicon Valley and automotive hardware & safety engineering from Europe. The company has offices in Berlin and Hamburg, Germany, as well as in Las Vegas, USA. Vay raised a USD 95m Series B funding round. Investors include Kinnevik, Coatue, Eurazeo, Atomico, La Famiglia and Creandum as well as prominent business angels such as former Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette, former member of the Management Board for R&D, Design, CTO of Audi Peter Mertens and Spotify’s Chief Technology & Chief Product Officer Gustav Söderström. www.vay.io
Vay press contact
Anja Rechtsteiner
Director of Communications
anja.rechtsteiner@vay.io / press@vay.io
+49 176 60404217