First there was the recently coined moniker for the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group merged company — Stellantis. Now there’s another new futuristic name in the industry: The Hyundai-Aptiv autonomous driving joint venture will go by the name Motional.
The $4 billion self-driving joint venture announced Tuesday that its brand name is a combination of the words “motion” and “emotional.”
“Motion” speaks to the movement of self-driving vehicles and “emotional” evokes the company’s people-first approach to the technology, the company said.
Hyundai Motor Group and auto supplier Aptiv announced their 50-50 joint venture last September and completed the deal in March. Aptiv is primarily contributing its autonomous driving technology, while Hyundai contributes its vehicle engineering services and R&D resources.
Motional plans to finish its first fully autonomous system this year. The company has also said its autonomous driving platform will be available for robotaxi providers, fleet operators and automotive manufacturers in 2022.
Motional will remain headquartered in Boston, with offices in Pittsburgh; Las Vegas; Santa Monica, Calif.; Singapore; and Seoul. The company said it plans to grow its team by 45 percent this calendar year.
President Karl Iagnemma said on the June 15 episode of “Shift: A Podcast About Mobility” that the pandemic has accelerated many of the joint venture’s goals.
“I would say, if anything, this period in time has really caused us to double down on our mission, reemphasize our growth strategy,” Iagnemma said. “Our fundamental focus is on making autonomous mobility a global reality.”
The joint venture has said it would not get involved in running ride-hailing, data or network services of its own.
“Developing the network to reach the customer, that is a fiercely competitive, highly capital-intensive place to play. It’s not our core competency. But we will be developing the technology that powers future autonomous mobility services,” Iagnemma said.
“For commercial vehicles, I see that as one of those adjacent areas,” he said. “Is there potential in the future that we’ll make some moves in that space? The answer is yes. We’re not there today.”
