Motional To Launch Robotic Taxi Service In Los Angeles With Lyft 

Motional, a collaboration between Hyundai and Aptiv, which develops autonomous vehicles, is preparing to launch a robotic taxi service in Los Angeles. You can use the Lyft app, one of Uber’s competitors, to order cars.

Motional will offer a fleet of Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric vehicles, which at the time of the launch of the service will have full autonomy of movement without a driver insuring the electronics. While the company has not revealed a specific launch date, a spokesperson has previously said that the company’s fully autonomous vehicles won’t arrive before 2023.

For Motional and Lyft, this will be the second region where robotaxis operates, having already launched the service in Las Vegas earlier this year. However, Los Angeles is not completely unexplored territory for a new business. Motional has been testing its machines here since last year, when the company said it intends to expand the business to California.

Motional has been known to be testing in Southern California for over a year. The company first made a name for itself in 2020, when Hyundai announced its intention to spend $1.6 billion to achieve parity with competitors in the autonomous car market, as well as set aside $400 million in other assets.