Motional, the joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and global supplier Aptiv, is expanding the scope of its self-driving testing.
The company said Tuesday it plans to open an operational hub in Los Angeles, from which it will test a robotaxi fleet comprised of electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover vehicles. The facility is scheduled to open later this month, at which time Motional will begin mapping public roads.
“We’re doubling down on our West Coast footprint,” Karl Iagnemma, the company’s CEO, said in a written statement. “The expansion is the latest in our growth trajectory and will position Motional with the talent, testing capabilities and R&D resources we need to deliver on our commercialization road map.”
Beyond Los Angeles, Motional says it will open a new office in the Bay Area. Between the two developments, the company says it will more than double the size of its existing California team, which previously consisted of two teams based in Santa Monica working on machine learning and hardware.
To date, Motional has focused its consumer-facing testing in Las Vegas, where it has operated largely in concert with ride-hailing service Lyft. The two companies have offered self-driving service — with a human safety driver behind the wheel — together since 2018, and conducted more than 100,000 paid rides to date.
Lyft and Motional intend to launch self-driving service together across multiple markets starting in 2023. This year, Motional took the first steps toward making that happen in Las Vegas, testing a vehicle without a safety driver behind the wheel in February.
At least for now, Motional is not saying whether Los Angeles represents the next city in which it will partner with Lyft.
Motional further conducts self-driving testing in Boston, Pittsburgh and Singapore. Developing self-driving systems that work across multiple cities and geographies has proved to be one of the most vexing aspects of bringing such technology to the market.
In testing in so many markets, Motional believes it’s laying the groundwork for widespread commercialization in much the same way Ford Motor Co. and Argo AI are working with Lyft to launch self-driving service in six cities over the next five years.
Motional may be the other company that’s most assertive in establishing so many commercial beachheads in what the company believes will become the early days of commercial robotaxis deployed at scale. Los Angeles provides the latest example of the joint venture’s ambition.
