Uber strikes deal with May Mobility to deploy ‘thousands’ of robotaxis

A May Mobility autonomous conveyance shuttle successful Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, connected Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023.

May Mobility is the latest autonomous conveyance relation to squad up with Uber to get much passengers into its robotaxis. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company, which has chiefly focused connected semipermanent proscription contracts, says it volition deploy “thousands” of autonomous vehicles connected Uber’s ridehailing level crossed aggregate US markets.

May Mobility says its concern with Uber volition kickoff successful Arlington, Texas, astatine the extremity of 2025. The archetypal vehicles volition run with information drivers, earlier transitioning to afloat driverless. The companies volition grow into caller cities starting adjacent year. May Mobility, which is backed by Toyota and BMW, has raised implicit $383 million implicit 9 backing rounds.

May Mobility presently owns a fleet of autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans, retrofitted with the company’s autonomous hardware and software. The institution operates rideshare services successful geofenced, easy mapped concern districts, assemblage campuses, and closed residential communities, specified as Sun City, a status assemblage extracurricular of Phoenix.

The woody with Uber is not exclusive to either company. May Mobility besides has a partnership with Lyft to deploy autonomous vehicles connected its ridehail platform, which launches successful Atlanta aboriginal this year. Likewise, Uber has been connected a streak of striking deals with AV operators arsenic it seeks to go a one-stop store for robotaxis and autonomous transportation vehicles of each brands. In summation to May Mobility, Uber has partnerships with Waymo, Motional, Avride, WeRide, and Volkswagen for self-driving cars, and Serve, Cartken, and Nuro for transportation robots.

May Mobility has acceptable itself isolated by focusing connected proscription contracts with businesses and section governments. And portion immoderate robotaxis person clashed with cities, May Mobility says its incentivized to code municipal concerns oregon hazard having its declaration terminated. The institution besides precocious added to its fleet electrical minibuses that tin transportation up to 30 passengers, which is hopes to motorboat adjacent year.