Hyundai Ioniq 5 becomes Motional's new self-driving robotaxi
Hyundai and Aptiv's autonomous car joint venture bears fruit in this funky Ioniq 5.
The Ioniq 5 looks at home with this gear attached.
Feast your eyes on Hyundai and partner Aptiv's latest self-driving car project: the Ioniq 5 robotaxi. Motional, the joint venture Hyundai and Aptiv operate, revealed the first images of the vehicle on Tuesday. This car is supposed to be the building block for an autonomous ride-hailing service coming in 2023. Hyundai said previously it eyed Nevada for this service, but Motional told Roadshow it's not ready to share final details about a planned launch yet. Still, in other words, there's a lot riding on this robocar.
Aside from the gear required to help this autonomous car see the world around it, which includes 30 sensors, cameras, lidar and radar, it doesn't change much from the standard Ioniq 5 SUV. It still looks super-futuristic, though we don't have any photos of the interior to show you just yet.
This should hit the streets in two years.
Inside, Motional promised a spacious cockpit for riders to spread out in and a way to interact with the car during their ride. Riders will be able to tell the Ioniq 5 to make an extra stop, for example, and take them to another location before their final destination.
This joint venture, and the resulting car, are part of a $7.4 billion investment from Hyundai. The automaker will dump these billions into the US specifically to roll out new electric cars, help bring Motional's services to life and perhaps even put you in an urban air taxi by the end of this decade.
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