Uber and Motional partnership focuses on self-driving taxis launching their first service in Las Vegas. Motional is a Hyndai-Aptiv joint venture focused on making self-driving technology commercial. The launch serves as the first step in their 10-year plan to bring autonomous taxi services to all the major cities in North America. The plan for this major move in the rideshare industry was announced in October.
Whereas this is not Motional’s first rodeo as it launched something similar with Lyft and Via Networks, it is Uber’s first time providing a robotaxi service to the public. This is a year in after initial tests were run in Santa Monica, which is still running. There are plans to extend this service to California but it will come along later because of stricter transport laws in the state.
Motional’s electric IONIQ 5 robotaxi is available in Uber X and Uber Comfort Electric in Vegas. For now, the number of vehicles in use is unknown but customers can rest assured that the robotaxi can be hailed in popular and high-traffic areas along the Vegas strip and they will work only during the daytime. Human safety operators will be inside each vehicle. The service will be initially free as the company tries to collect feedback.
The Motional partnership seems to be on track for Uber after delving into autonomous driving vehicles in 2015. The company’s self-driving unit, Uber ATG was sold later to Aurora in 2020. The cost of the venture and the risk were high for Uber after its reputation took a hit when one of its self-driving units with a human safety operator knocked and killed a pedestrian.
