Motional has faced numerous challenges on the road to autonomous driving. As a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, Motional had planned to launch a driverless taxi service in partnership with Lyft, but ran into difficulties after missing key deadlines. Subsequently, Aptiv withdrew its investment, and Hyundai Motor provided an additional $1 billion in funding. After a series of layoffs, the company reduced its workforce from a peak of 1,400 employees to 600, and Motional realized it needed to transform to continue surviving.
Motional decided to pause its original business plan and adopt a new strategy centered around artificial intelligence, planning to launch a driverless taxi service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026. Currently, the company has already launched a taxi service with human safety drivers for its employees, and it is expected to open this service to the public later this year in collaboration with an undisclosed ride-hailing platform. By year-end, these taxis will be fully driverless.
Motional's CEO Laura Major stated that the rapid development of artificial intelligence in recent years made the company realize that although its existing driverless system was safe and reliable, it still lacked in terms of global scalability and cost optimization. Therefore, Motional turned to integrating multiple small machine learning models into a unified framework using an end-to-end architecture. This new approach helps the system adapt more quickly to different cities and environments, and improves operational efficiency.
During a demonstration of Motional's new strategy, a journalist experienced the company's driverless car. On the streets of Las Vegas, the modern Ioniq 5 successfully navigated through busy areas, handling various complex situations, including avoiding parked taxis and pedestrians. Although the system is still under development, the overall driving performance received Major's approval.
Motional's goals are not limited to taxi services; Major also mentioned that the company hopes to integrate Level 4 autonomous driving technology into personal vehicles in the future, promoting the widespread adoption of this technology.
Key Points:
🚗 Motional plans to launch a driverless taxi service in Las Vegas by the end of 2026, with the goal of achieving full autonomy.
🧠 The company is adopting an AI-driven new strategy, integrating multiple small models into a unified framework to improve the system's flexibility and cost-effectiveness.
🌐 Motional is not only focused on commercializing driverless taxis, but also hopes to apply autonomous driving technology to personal vehicles in the future, promoting industry development.
