Uber’s fleet will now include Motional’s Ioniq 5 self-driving vehicles
The fleet ofUber will expand with a new autonomous taxi model. Recently, the company announced that it had signed a 10-year agreement with Hyundai’s Motional. According to this agreement, Uber will be able to use autonomous electric vehicles ioniq 5 by Motional for transport passengers and make deliveries.
According to Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma, this agreement will be instrumental in the widespread adoption of robot taxis. He added that Motional now has unparalleled access to millions of users and a roadmap that will enable a significant development over the next ten years.
According to the information, the Ioniq 5 vehicles used by Uber will be “strategically deployed” in different cities in the United States and will start transporting passengers towards the end of this year.
Motional and its partners
It can be said that Motional already has experience when it comes to passenger transport and deliveries. The company has already worked with Uber. Towards the end of 2021, the latter announced that it would test autonomous food delivery with Motional.
Motional has also previously worked with Lyft. Both companies began public testing in Las Vegas and Los Angeles last August.
The collaboration of Uber and Motional
Uber and Motional will each have their role to play in bringing their collaboration to a successful conclusion. Uber will provide data to Motional to help Motional best allocate and position vehicles. For its part, Motional said that its autonomous vehicles will allow “reduce downtime and unnecessary kilometers travelled”. This will lead to a better experience for customers with lower wait times and costs.
For now, only Alphabet Waymo and General Motors Cruise offer fully driverless transport services on a relatively large scale. Motional started a bit later than those two companies. However, she has already been able to perform over 100,000 driverless rides in Las Vegas using a previous version of its vehicles on Lyft’s network.
In any case, we expect this collaboration between Uber and Motional to bring a lot to both companies.
SOURCE: Engadget
