Motional and Hyundai Motor Group have unveiled Motional’s next-generation robotaxi. Based on the all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5, the robotaxi is an SAE Level 4 autonomous vehicle that can safely operate without a driver.

Motional says that the new robotaxi is its first commercial vehicle and signals a pivotal milestone in the company’s roadmap. It will begin transporting public passengers in the Ioniq 5 robotaxi in 2023 through a partnership with Lyft.

The new robotaxi’s prominently displayed sensor suite includes more than 30 sensors, combining camera, radar, and lidar sensors to provide 360-degree perception for safe autonomous operation in diverse driving environments. Motional’s driverless technology, which includes advanced machine learning systems trained on decades of real-world data, is engineered to enable the vehicle to safely navigate the challenging and complex driving situations.

The Hyundai Motor Group’s dedicated battery electric vehicle (BEV) E-GMP (Electric Global Modular Platform) enables a spacious, comfortable interior for occupants to work, relax, or socialize during their driverless ride. The interior features several rider-focused interfaces to allow passengers to interact with the vehicle during their ride. The resulting passenger experience will set a new standard for driverless ride-hailing, believe the partners.

Motional says that the Ioniq 5 robotaxi is built from the ground up to be driverless. The E-GMP platform’s ultra-fast charging and long-range driving enable maximum use of the robotaxi for cost-effective commercialization.

“This robotaxi represents Motional’s vision of a driverless future becoming a reality,” said Motional President and CEO Karl Iagnemma. “Through our strategic partnership with Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, we have unparalleled automotive and software expertise across our entire vehicle development process. This deep collaboration enables us to manufacture a robotaxi that’s both highly safe and reliable—and is cost-optimized for global production. We’re focused on mass commercialization, and the Ioniq 5 robotaxi is built for that purpose.”

The partners emphasized passenger safety throughout the vehicle, with redundancies across functions such as navigation, steering, braking, and power.

“Hyundai Motor has evolved its Ioniq 5, a battery-electric vehicle built on its EV-dedicated platform, into a platform for fully autonomous vehicles,” said Woongjun Jang, Head of the Autonomous Driving Center at Hyundai Motor Group and Chief Strategy Officer at Motional. “For the Ioniq 5-based robotaxi, we have applied various redundancy systems, in addition to a suite of essential technologies to ensure safety and convenience of the passengers.”

In addition, Motional will provide Remote Vehicle Assistance (RVA) should the robotaxi encounter an unusual road scenario such as construction or flooding. In such an event, a remote operator could instantly connect to the vehicle and direct it to a new path.

Motional announced in July that would use Ottopia‘s teleoperation technology for RVA, for which a human operator would provide remote assistance to AVs when they’re navigating unusual scenarios or edge cases. The operator can direct the vehicle to a new path or provide other assistance to the vehicle, all while located remotely in a fleet control center.

“While there are rapid advances in autonomous technology, there are always going to be certain edge cases that can benefit from remote support,” said Amit Rosenzweig, Founder and CEO, Ottopia. “This requires the ability to offer robust, real-time human intervention—at any time, anywhere.”

“An RVA solution provides an added layer of support for when our vehicles encounter unique and challenging road scenarios,” added Guillaume Binet, Vice President of Software Infrastructure, Motional.  “Effective RVA is an important part of our commitment to delivering a seamless end-to-end passenger experience.”

Ottopia has optimized its proprietary video, communication, and control software to integrate with Motional’s RVA solution, which includes Motional-developed interfaces and third-party hardware. Testing of the RVA solution is scheduled for later this year.

Motional was formed in March 2020 as a joint venture between automaker Hyundai Motor Group and supplier Aptiv to advance the development and commercialization of the world’s highest-performing and safest autonomous vehicles. The joint-venture team has decades of expertise in driverless technology and a lot of experience operating commercial robotaxi services. It has moved hundreds of thousands of consumers through its self-driving service on the Lyft network in Las Vegas with what it says is the world’s most-established public robotaxi fleet, and it claims to be the only supplier in its industry to partner with two major ride-hailing companies: Lyft and Via.

The company intends to build on that experience in entering the next phase of its commercial roadmap when it launches a fully driverless service on the Lyft network. The Ioniq 5 robotaxis will be deployed in multiple U.S. markets, which the company says will mark a turning point for driverless technology and lay the foundation for making robotaxis a global reality.

When announced in December, the Motional/Lyft agreement was said to mark the largest robotaxi deployment partnership for a major ridesharing network. It follows an ongoing and successful three-year partnership in Las Vegas and is to be a quantum leap for the partnership; the new vehicles will be fully driverless, the fleet size will grow significantly, and the service will have the potential to scale widely.

“Our aim is to not only build safe, reliable, and accessible driverless vehicles but to deliver them at significant scale,” commented Iagnemma at the time.

“This first-of-its-kind agreement is a testament to our collaborative approach for scaling self-driving vehicles in cities,” added Raj Kapoor, then Lyft CSO and head of its self-driving business. He is now a Strategic Advisor for Lyft and Cofounder & Managing Partner at Stealth VC focused on climate change.

Motional and Hyundai Motor Group will debut the Ioniq 5 robotaxis for the first time publicly at IAA Mobility in Munich, September 7-12.