Volkswagen, Mobileye and Champion Motors have announced plans to launch Israel’s first self-driving ride hailing Mobility as a Service operation next year.
The partners say that a new joint venture will operate as “New Mobility in Israel,” after the group’s proposal was formally accepted by the Israeli government during a private ceremony at the Smart Mobility Summit 2018 in Tel Aviv.
The Volkswagen Group will provide the electric vehicles while Intel-owned Mobileye will provide its level-4 AV Kit which is a driverless solution comprising of hardware, driving policy, safety software and map data. Champion Motors will run the fleet operations and control centre.
Together, the three companies say they will add the mobility platform and services, content and other Mobility-as-a-Service tools, ensuring a seamless rider experience in the deployment of a full-stack Mobility-as-a-Service offering.
The government of Israel has committed to support the project in three main areas: furnishing legal and regulatory support, sharing the required infrastructure and traffic data, and providing access to infrastructure as needed. While “New Mobility in Israel” will be Israel’s first commercial Mobility-as-a-Service with self-driving vehicles, all facilitations and rulings will be applied to all other ventures that wish to operate a Mobility-as-a-Service in Israel.
Volkswagen, Mobileye and Champion Motors say they will use “New Mobility in Israel” to serve as a global beta site for testing and introducing the Mobility-as-a-Service model using autonomous electric vehicles. The project aims to scale to commercialisation by 2022.
“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,” said Dr. Herbert Diess, CEO of the Volkswagen Group. “We are looking forward to this partnership with our local partners Mobileye and Champion Motors from Israel.”
“We are delighted to embark on a joint venture with a world-leading automotive OEM, aimed at delivering a transformational mobility service,” added Professor Amnon Shashua, Mobileye CEO and senior vice president at Intel. “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 minimizing the direct/indirect incurred societal costs – air/noise pollution, congestion and safety.”
“Champion Motors is investing in autotech and smart mobility in order to continue providing the Israeli customers with the best and most advanced products and services in this area,” concluded Professor Itzhak Swary, chairman of the board of directors at Champion Motors. “We are proud to partner with Volkswagen and strengthen our collaboration through this pioneering project, which positions Israel at the spearhead of innovation.”
