Waymo has struck a take care of Hyundai to carry the IONIQ 5 EV to its robotaxi community, including one other autonomous automobile possibility because it scales up its enterprise.
The autonomous automobile firm introduced Friday that it expects to begin on-road testing a Waymo-equipped IONIQ 5 by late 2025, with the AV changing into out there to riders “in the years to follow.” Chris Bonelli, a spokesperson for Waymo, declined to share the financials of the deal.
Hyundai will construct the IONIQ 5s on the manufacturing unit it’s about to open in Georgia, and Waymo will then combine its autonomous automobile know-how into the autos at a separate location. Waymo mentioned it expects to supply a “significant volume” of autonomous IONIQ 5s with Hyundai. Bonelli declined to say what number of which means, and mentioned the IONIQ 5 is just not straight changing any of the autos it at present makes use of or plans to make use of.
The addition of the IONIQ 5 to Waymo’s fleet will assist the corporate take care of the churn of autos it makes use of on its rising robotaxi community. While it began with Chrysler Pacifica hybrid vans, it has since phased these out. Waymo at present depends on getting older Jaguar I-Pace SUVs. The firm is at present testing vans purposely designed for autonomous use made by China’s Zeekr in San Francisco, although that automobile might run into tariff bother.
Waymo has additionally been increasing how folks can hail its AVs. Just final month, it introduced that Uber will make Waymo AVs out there by itself ride-hailing community in each Austin and Atlanta subsequent yr.
Partnering with Waymo comes at a pivotal second for Hyundai. It spent years and billions of {dollars} creating an autonomous automobile three way partnership known as Motional with automotive provider Aptiv. But Aptiv backed away from Motional earlier this yr, leaving Hyundai to step in and plug the monetary gap. Motional has since gone by way of a significant restructuring that led to lots of of layoffs, and CEO Karl Iagnemma stepped down in September.
A distinct autonomous model of its IONIQ 5 can also be at present being examined with Yandex spinout Avride that may finally turn into out there on Uber’s ride-hail community.
