Motional signed a 10-year deal to supply Hyundai’s IONIQ 5-based autonomous vehicles to Uber. The vehicles will operate in US cities and begin offering passenger rides later this year.
Motional will supply the all-electric IONIQ 5-based driverless robot taxi to US online transportation companies starting later this year, the company said in a statement.
“This agreement will play a role in the wide-scale adoption of robotaxis,” said Motion CEO Karl Iagnemma. “Motional now has unrivaled access to millions of riders and a roadmap to improve significantly over the next ten years.”
Uber will operate its Level 4 IONIQ 5 robot taxi for car-calling and delivery services in the United States over the next 10 years and explore opportunities to advance into other markets.
Uber actually used to have its own autonomous vehicle division called Advanced Technologies Group, but sold it to Aurora Innovation in 2020
Level 4 autonomous vehicles means the robot taxi can drive itself under limited conditions and will not operate if all the necessary conditions are not met. At Level 5, the vehicle’s auto-driving feature can drive in any condition.
With this partnership, Uber will provide Motional with data to help it allocate and position vehicles properly.
Motional is a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv to develop autonomous vehicles for ride-hailing services. Aptiv is a self-driving technology company based in Ireland with operations in several countries, including the US.
Hyundai develop IONIQ 5-based robotaxi with Level 4 autonomous Technology
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