Less than two years after it began operating on public roads, Yandex has announced that its self-driving cars have driven one million autonomous miles on public roads.

The groundwork for Yandex’s progress was laid during the initial stages of development, Yandex explains, as the company put its expertise in machine learning, navigation, mapping tools, and cloud technologies to the test in challenging driving conditions.

“This number represents more than a distance; it represents two years of impressive progress in the development of our platform against challenging real-world weather and road conditions,” Yandex says.

The first million autonomous miles were navigated on the roads of Moscow, Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, Skolkovo and Innopolis, Russia, where Yandex has been conducting a robo-taxi program for more than a year with no one behind the steering wheel.

The majority of the autonomous miles were completed in Moscow and Tel Aviv, which were recently ranked among the twenty most congested cities in the world at 5th and 19th place, respectively, Yandex notes.

Those two locations offer plenty of challenges for Yandex’s vehicles to overcome, including assertive drivers, jaywalkers, traffic jams and a wide spectrum of weather.

“By completing over a million autonomous miles in our demanding testing locations, our self-driving program rapidly advanced in a relatively short period of time,” Yandex says.

Currently, Yandex’s vehicles are driving more than 80,000 miles per week, which is almost twice the miles that the company completed in all of 2018. Yandex's fleet has grown to 50 vehicles, allowing it to complete 310,000 miles in the last month alone.

By doubling the size of its fleet to 100 by the end of 2019, Yandex says that it will be able to “significantly increase the sophistication and safety” of its platform as the company gains more experience and collects more data on the roads.

“Real-world experience in challenging conditions ultimately drives innovation and ensures we are continuing to build a platform meant to safely operate among other vehicles and pedestrians,” Yandex says.

“The next step is expanding our fleet to hundreds of cars, so we could drive 1,000,000 miles in a week and evaluate all the improvements.”

A major part of Yandex’s expansion strategy is its partnership with Hyundai Mobis, announced earlier this year.  

A self-driving Sonata was recently announced, and it will be a part of the new Hyundai Motor Group vehicles that will be added to Yandex's fleet.