Few companies have professed more sweeping ambitions in the automated-driving technology realm than Intel and its Mobileye subsidiary.
Now Mobileye has added fresh updates to long-standing blueprints that have included everything from engineering advanced driver-assist systems to purchasing a consumer-facing transit app to developing its own lidar sensors, and much more.
At the Munich IAA auto show, the company unveiled the six-passenger, electric autonomous vehicle that it will use for driverless ride-hailing service, slated to start next year in Munich and Tel Aviv.
Service in Munich will be run in conjunction with a new partner, rental-car company Sixt, the companies said Tuesday. Mobileye will own the vehicles while Sixt handles ongoing maintenance and operations. The vehicles be sourced from Mobileye's partnership with Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio.
They will operate under the Sixt and "MoovitAV" banners, the latter being an updated version of the mobility-as-a-service and transit brand that Mobileye acquired for $900 million in May 2020. Working together, the two companies intend to start in Munich in mid-2022 and have "dozens" of vehicles on the road in 2023, says Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua.
From those beginnings, they envision scaling robotaxi service across Europe by the end of the decade.
"The plan is around 50 vehicles without human safety drivers to start, then we will expand based on the regulatory landscape at the time outside of Germany," Shashua said.