Mobileye, the veteran Israeli autonomous-driving company, is moving beyond supplying technology to carmakers and plans to launch an independent robotaxi operation. The new business, announced by the company led by Prof. Amnon Shashua, will compete directly with Tesla, Google’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox. The first rollout is expected in a U.S. city that has not yet been disclosed, in 2027, after a series of delays.
The company plans to start with a fleet of about 100 vehicles in a major U.S. metropolitan area, deploying them gradually over the year to test and validate a fully driverless operating model. If the pilot succeeds, Mobileye aims to expand the fleet to about 17,000 vehicles within five years. The company says the move also gives a new role to Moovit, which Intel bought in 2019 for about $1 billion, after its autonomy plans moved more slowly than hoped and its use remained limited. In April, Calcalist reported Mobileye had even considered selling Moovit at a valuation far below $1 billion.
Moovit is expected to play a central role in the new project, not only by providing maps but also by managing fleets. Mobileye says Moovit’s mobility platform now serves more than 1.7 billion users across more than 3,500 cities, 112 countries and 45 languages. Mobileye will continue its joint project with Volkswagen, but Volkswagen has agreed that Mobileye can also install its autonomous-driving systems in vehicles made by other manufacturers for robotaxi use.
Mobileye is also leaving the door open to partnerships with Uber and Lyft, which dominate the U.S. ride-hailing market. Waymo remains the leading U.S. robotaxi operator with about 4,000 vehicles in around 10 cities, Tesla is still in testing with only dozens of robotaxis, and Zoox has fewer than 100 vehicles. Mobileye’s Volkswagen-backed robotaxi plan is supposed to put about 1,000 autonomous taxis on U.S. roads in 2027. Shashua said the robotaxi revolution is only beginning, that the industry is becoming dependent on a few technology suppliers and business models, and that the new venture is meant to expand, not replace, existing partnerships. The company says no extra hiring is currently planned.
