Motional has their HQ located in the Boston area. Motional is an American autonomous vehicle company founded in March 2020 as a joint venture between automaker Hyundai Motor Group and auto supplier Aptiv.
Iāve been noticing Hyundai has gotten very forward looking of late, and Iāve always been impressed by the GDP per capital innovation quotient of South Korea. The race to robo-taxis is very interesting to me. They are in headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, but Motional also maintains operations in Pittsburgh, Singapore, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles.
So why do companies like Motional matter? They bridge the present with the future of AVs, EVs and everything in-between. We are talking about a huge TAM, total addressable market.
The winners of this industry of AV integration will likely also become powerful robotics companies. The CEO of Motional is Karl Iagnemma. I find this is a very credible startup, if you can call it that.
Karl is an authority on robotics and autonomous vehicles whose opinion and commentary has been published and broadcast worldwide on Bloomberg, CNBC, BBC, and many other media outlets.
As former director of the Robotic Mobility Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), his research resulted in more than 150 technical publications, 50 issued or filed patents, and numerous edited volumes, including books on the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle competitions. Karl was named one of 2017ās āMost Intriguing Entrepreneursā by Goldman Sachs and designated a member of the 2017 āRecode 100ā list of technology influencers.
The Lyft Trial
The Lyft trial is incredible, and yet I was shocked to see how little it is being covered. Iām always following news on Cruise, Tesla and Inteās Mobileye unit, as well as all the incredible Chinese companies in the field including Baiduās Apollo program and of course Googleās Waymo.
The partnerships in the auto sector truly are incredible. There are so many variables in the AV industry. If youāve read my work you know Iām a massive fan of Wayve in this area.
So letās dive into the heart of the topic.
