In America, the age of autonomous shuttles began with a crunch. On Wednesday, the multinational transportation company Keolis, French manufacturer Navya, and AAA launched the small driverless vehicle in Las Vegas. The electric vehicle had an attendant on board, to keep the peace, and carried eight people in a half-mile loop around the Fremont Street Entertainment District. According to representatives from Keolis and AAA, as well as a first-person account published in Digital Trends, the shuttle encountered a semi-truck backing out of an alleyway and stopped. It couldn't back up, because there was a vehicle directly behind it.

When it comes to self-driving cars, the public tends to focus on developments for private vehicles for individuals, but there are also some significant advances underway in other categories such as shuttle busses. In the latest piece of news, Navya, a startup out of France that makes driverless shuttles, has raised 34 million ( 30 million) in funding to build out its team, technology and sales. The funding is coming from two strategic backers, public transportation provider Keolis and automotive parts group Valeo, along with Qatari investors Group8. Navya is not disclosing its valuation but one report from Funderbeam estimates it at 222 million after this round. Navya prior to this round had raised 4.5 million ( 4.1 million) from French investors Gravitation, CapDecisif, and Robolution Capital (an investment fund focused only on robotics investments).

Internet search giants making self-driving cars appears to be a trend, and Russia's Yandex wants in. It's partnering with Daimler, truck maker Kamaz and government-backed researchers at NAMI on an autonomous shuttle bus that could carry up to 12 people and travel about 124 miles on a charge. Yandex is contributing its experiences with artificial intelligence, computer vision and voice recognition, and it'll even be central to the interface -- you'll use a Yandex-linked mobile app to pinpoint your destination. NAMI will start testing the self-driving bus on closed circuits in 2017, and it's bound to be a while after that before you can see one (or something like it) cruising the streets. There's no guarantee that you'll ever get to ride this bus beyond Russian borders, but it wouldn't be surprising if Yandex's technology finds its way into more vehicles. If nothing else, this is further evidence that driverless transportation is quickly becoming a worldwide phenomenon.