New robotaxi company set to drop soon.
Mobileye has pitched itself as an autonomous vehicle technology supplier. Now it wants the operator label, too.
The Intel subsidiary and publicly traded company said Tuesday it plans to launch a robotaxi service in a U.S. city in 2027, marking an expansion beyond its supplier strategy. Mobileye didn’t name the U.S. city. However, the Israeli-based company said it will have an initial fleet of 100 autonomous vehicles, which will be phased in throughout 2027.
If successful, Mobileye said it plans to scale to about 17,000 robotaxis over the following five years.
“The robotaxi revolution has only just begun, and its potential for transforming how we travel around the world continues to increase,” Mobileye founder and CEO Amnon Shashua said in a statement, noting that the industry has become increasingly dependent on a small number of technology providers and business models.
Mobileye rose to prominence supplying automakers with millions of computer vision chips designed to support automotive safety features and advanced driver-assistance systems. The company later began developing chips and software that could handle autonomous driving and tested the tech in several cities. It now supplies its self-driving system to Volkswagen and its MOIA subsidiary.
But Mobileye apparently wants to own some of the robotaxi market, even if that puts it in direct competition with companies it supplies its self-driving system to.
Mobileye partnered with Lyft last year to bring robotaxis to Dallas sometime this year; as far as I can tell, that hasn’t happened yet. Ars Technica adds some details.
The company first rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, when Tesla began using Mobileye’s advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) as part of Autopilot. That relationship lasted until 2016, when Mobileye dropped Tesla as a customer after being alarmed that a driver assistance system was being sold to end users as driverless technology. Since then, Mobileye has continued to work with other partners on ADAS and autonomous vehicles.
It has developed a new “SuperVision” ADAS that combines cameras and radar sensors, used by Porsche and Polestar, among others. On the robotaxi front, it has partnered with Volkswagen Group’s MOIA to develop a commercially available robotaxi based on the VW ID. Buzz minivan, and last year, Mobileye revealed plans to work with Lyft to deploy robotaxis in Dallas, “as soon as” this year.
You can always count on Tesla to bring the drama. We don’t know yet what these things will look like or where they’ll deploy, but more competition is good for the market. CNBC has more.