Hyundai’s Motional, Uber to launch self-driving food delivery service

Motional Inc., a US mobility joint venture between Hyundai Motor Co. and Aptiv PLC, has teamed up with Uber Technologies Inc. to provide an autonomous food delivery service in Santa Monica, California, in early 2022.

Motional said on Friday it will start delivering meal kits from select restaurants on Uber’s food delivery app Eats. The US company said it will expand the pilot service beyond food delivery and to other parts of the US later.

The tie-up marks Motional’s first advance into the driverless delivery service market as well as Uber’s first delivery partnership with an autonomous vehicle fleet provider.

The pilot service will be made by Hyundai Motor’s electric SUV, the IONIQ 5, converted for autonomous food delivery.

However, a human safety operator will be present inside the vehicle, according to Motional.

Uber Eats operates 780,000 branches in some 6,000 cities around the world, delivering food in fewer than 30 minutes.

"We're confident this will be a successful collaboration with Uber and see many long-term opportunities for further deploying Motional's technology across the Uber platform," said Motional Chief Executive Karl Iagnemma.

LEVEL4 CAPABILITIES

Hyundai said last month it is launching a pilot service of its first autonomous robotaxi based on the IONIQ 5 in Seoul in the first half of 2022.

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 robotaxi is equipped with the hardware and software needed for Level 4 self-driving capabilities.

At Level 4, a vehicle can drive itself under limited conditions, just shy of Level 5, which enables fully automated driving.

In the US, Motional tested IONIQ 5 robotaxis on public roads in Las Vegas early this year, becoming one of the world’s first companies to achieve Level 4 autonomy.

Hyundai and Motional aim to launch a fully driverless ride-hail service in Las Vegas by 2023 in partnership with US ride-sharing platform Lyft.

In September, US retail giant Walmart Inc. also collaborated with Ford Motor and Argo AI, a US autonomous vehicle technology platform company, to launch an autonomous delivery service in Miami, Austin, Texas and Washington D.C.

Hyundai Motor-invested Aurora Innovation Inc., a US self-driving vehicle technology startup, said last week it has partnered with Uber to launch a pilot autonomous trucking service.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.