Korean carmaker Hyundai has unveiled a new pilot project for an on-demand self-driving car ridesharing service in Irvine, California in collaboration with Israeli smart transport startup Via and Chinese company Pony.ai. The BotRide service will allow residents of Irvine to order shared rides using a smartphone app and will inform them of their pickup point. Pony.ai developed the self-driving system for the service while Via is providing the ridesharing technology.
Via head of business development in Israel Guy Sher told "Globes", "Via provides the connection between the passenger and the vehicle, chooses the flexible routes and the ability to board the car with the QR code that identifies the passenger. We don't know of any such service worldwide with a fleet of autonomous cars traveling on flexible routes and open to the public. In recent months, we have been operating a similar service in Australia but there it is just one car on a senior citizen campus."
Via was founded in 2012 by CEO Daniel Ramot and VP development Oren Shoval, The company has raised over $400 million from investors including Daimler, Pitango, 83North, Hearst Ventures. The company provides smart on-demand ridesharing services on flexible routes in cities around the world including New York, Washington, Chicago, London, Sydney, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Tokyo, and recently began a government-subsidized service in Tel Aviv in partnership with Dan.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 28, 2019
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