Dive Brief:
- May Mobility plans to put robotaxis on the road this year in midtown Atlanta in conjunction with Lyft and in Arlington, Texas, with Uber, it said last week in a press release.
- The autonomous vehicle technology company’s software will integrate with the ride-hail companies’ apps, allowing riders to choose an autonomous or traditional vehicle.
- Both deployments will start with standby operators before transitioning to driverless operations. In a May news release, May Mobility said it plans to roll out “thousands of AVs on the Uber platform over the next few years.”
Dive Insight:
May Mobility operates its own fleets in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and Martinez, California. The Detroit service is free to residents 62 years and older or who live with disabilities as part of a city-backed pilot program. The Grand Rapids program, developed with the support of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, aims to serve those without a private vehicle or who have mobility challenges.
The company says its AV technology can handle narrow city streets, provides more human-like maneuvering around obstacles like double-parked cars and delivers smoother accelerations and braking.
Among its investors are Toyota, State Farm and BMW. In June, global financial firm MUFG Bank announced an investment and partnership with May Mobility. The partners will collaborate to expand May Mobility’s fleet in Japan, where there is a shortage of drivers related to declining birth rates and an aging population, the companies said in a news release.
May Mobility said its technology can operate in both left- and right-hand driving environments.
