Motional, the autonomous vehicle company backed by Hyundai Motor Group, has reset its robotaxi strategy with an AI-first approach to self-driving technology and said it aims to launch a commercial driverless service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026.
The move follows a period of retrenchment for the company, which was formed as a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv. Motional had previously missed a target to launch a fully driverless robotaxi service with Lyft, while Aptiv later exited as a financial backer. Hyundai subsequently injected an additional $1 billion to support operations, even as the company cut its workforce sharply, including a restructuring in May 2024 that reduced headcount by about 40%.
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Motional said it paused its commercial rollout to rethink its technology stack as advances in artificial intelligence reshaped the autonomous driving sector. The company has since shifted away from a more traditional robotics-based system toward a foundation model-driven architecture designed to better generalise across cities and reduce development costs.
“We saw that there was tremendous potential with all the advancements that were happening within AI,” Motional president and chief executive Laura Major said during a presentation at the company’s Las Vegas facilities. She said the company also identified “a gap to getting to an affordable solution that could generalize and scale globally,” prompting the decision to slow near-term commercial activity in order to accelerate longer-term progress.
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Motional’s earlier system relied on multiple machine learning models for tasks such as perception and tracking, combined with rules-based software for other functions. Under the new approach, the company is integrating these capabilities into a single AI backbone while retaining smaller models for development flexibility, a structure it says supports faster adaptation to new environments.
The company has already launched an internal robotaxi service in Las Vegas with a human safety operator behind the wheel. It plans to open that service to the public later this year through a ride-hailing partner, before removing the safety operator and beginning fully driverless commercial operations by year-end. Motional has existing partnerships with Lyft and Uber, though it did not name a partner for the upcoming launch.
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Motional is initially focusing on Las Vegas as a proving ground for the rebooted system. During a recent demonstration, the company showcased a 30-minute autonomous drive using its updated software, highlighting progress since earlier iterations as it works toward scaling the technology to additional markets.
Source: TechCrunch
