Mobileye unveiled a new fully autonomous electric robotaxi at the IAA Mobility conference in Munich on Tuesday, setting the stage for what could become the first fleet of self-driving taxis to launch in Europe and in Israel. IAA is the German acronym for the International Automobile Exhibition.
The self-driving, six-passenger taxi could appear on the roads of Tel Aviv and Munich within a year pending regulatory approvals, Johann Jungwirth, Mobileye’s vice president of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) told The Jerusalem Post.
Mobileye is in talks with Israel’s Transportation Ministry, and is “cautiously optimistic” about getting approval for the robotaxis in 2022, he said. That would require overcoming a strong lobby from the taxi drivers union, which previously succeeded in blocking ride-sharing app Uber from entering the Israeli market.
Once the technology is approved in Israel, service would start in Tel Aviv first and then expand to other cities, Jungwirth said.
Moovit, whose app is used by more than 600 million users around the world to plan trips via public transportation, will be used to book the robotaxi for users, and the autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be branded as MoovitAV services so that customers will make the connection between the two. Both Mobileye and Moovit are Israeli companies that are owned by global computing giant Intel Corp.
The launch of the fleet in Germany will be done in collaboration with Sixt, a leading international provider of mobility services, and will aim to scale driverless ride-sharing services across Germany and other European countries later this decade.
Riders in Germany will be able to access the service via Moovit or Sixt’s app ONE, which combines options for ride hailing as well as car rental, car sharing and car subscriptions, offering customers worldwide access to more than 200,000 vehicles and 1.5 million drivers.
Mobileye will own the robotaxi fleet used in the Munich service, while Sixt will be charged with maintaining and operating the fleet.
The robotaxi fleet will use the NIO ES8, an all-electric, 7-seater sport utility vehicle manufactured by China’s NIO. It will be equipped with the Mobileye Drive self-driving system, including the True Redundancy sensing solution with cameras, radar and lidar sensors, Mobileye’s crowd-sourced Roadbook AV map, and Responsibility-Sensitive Safety driving policy.
Mobileye will also collaborate with German auto supplier Schaeffler to build a self-driving chassis that can be used in building autonomous shuttles in the future, it added.
“This will be the most beautiful self-driving robotaxi in the world,” Jungwirth said. “We designed the cameras in the roof unit in a way that makes the technology almost invisible, unlike other robotaxi models being used.”
Several robotaxi services have begun operations in recent months in China, and there are limited tests being conducted in the United States.
Germany recently enacted an autonomous vehicle law that permits driverless vehicles on German roads, clearing the way for Mobileye’s robotaxis to begin early-rider testing on Munich streets in 2022, Jungwirth said.
“Germany has shown global leadership toward a future of autonomous mobility by expediting crucial AV legislation,” Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said at IAA. “Our ability to begin robotaxi operations in Munich next year would not be possible without this new law.”
The launch will be part of a vision that Mobileye has been actualizing since it was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion, the largest acquisition of an Israeli company to date.
“Mobileye is passionate about bringing autonomous vehicles to consumers,” said company co-founder and CEO, Prof. Amnon Shashua. “The new Mobileye AV, accessible through the MoovitAV service, is an important milestone on the way to a driverless world.”