Yandex’s autonomous car has traveled 400 km without driver’s participation for the first time

Yandex’s unmanned car made a trip along the Moscow – Tula – Moscow route without a single human intervention. The test driver was present behind the wheel, but the autonomous driving system was in full control for 400 kilometers.

Cameras installed in the cabin recorded the process: one filmed the road, one filmed the driver’s actions, and one filmed the pedals. The company has published a short clip in fast-forward and six hours of unglued footage, confirming that the driving was automatic.

The car was driven by a system based on a neural network-transformer trained on the real-world actions of experienced drivers. It predicts the behavior of other road users and plots a route based on the data. ML-planner was responsible for maneuvers, gave way to public transport, correctly bypassed repair areas and passed toll sections of the M-4 “Don” highway with the help of a transponder.

The route included city streets of Moscow and Tula, regional and federal roads. On the way there were interchanges, intersections with and without regulation, and the intensity of the flow varied: in the capital there were traffic jams, outside the city the traffic was free.

The route included city streets in Moscow and Tula, regional and federal roads.

Yandex has been developing autonomous driving technologies since 2017. Today they are used in cars and trucks, as well as in delivery robots. In the future, the company intends to use the same system in humanoid robots.

Since May 2025, Yandex’s autonomous trucks have been performing commercial transportation for the Magnit chain on the Kolomna – Tula route. During this time, they have covered more than 130,000 kilometers and transported about 4,000 tons of goods. In 2026, the company will expand the geography of transportation, and by 2027 will increase the fleet of autonomous tractors to a thousand units.