Israeli company Mobileye, German car maker Volkswagen (VW) and Champion Motors, are teaming up to launch Israel’s first driverless taxi service in 2019, the companies announced on Monday.
Volkswagen will deliver a number of electric cars to Israel to be fitted with Mobileye’s self-driving technology for the scheme they call Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS). Israel’s Champion Motors will run operations and a control centre for the fleet.
The project is anticipated to be launched in early 2019 and introduced slowly, becoming completely commercialised in 2022 with hundreds of self-driving cars.
The announcement was made on Monday at the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv after the project was officially recognised by the Israeli government, who have vowed to give legal and regulatory support, required infrastructure and traffic data, and access to infrastructure.
Mobileye was bought last year by American computer chip giant Intel in Israel’s largest-ever high-tech acquisition. Mobileye makes up more than 70% of the self-driving technology market share, supplying millions of cars from 25 different automakers with some type of its advanced driver-assist systems.
Dr Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen, said in a statement: “We firmly believe that self-driving electric vehicles will offer Israel and cities around the world safe, clean and emission-free mobility, which is accessible and convenient. We are looking forward to this partnership with our local partners Mobileye and Champion Motors from Israel”.
Professor Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CEO and senior vice president at Intel said: “Our service aims to intelligently and dynamically adapt to the urban mobility needs of the 21st Century, catering to the mobility-mileage demands within the city while minimising the direct/indirect incurred societal costs – air/noise pollution, congestion and safety”.
