All posts tagged: May Mobility

May Mobility is going public in a .4B SPAC deal

May Mobility is going public in a $1.4B SPAC deal

Published by skeptic

Autonomous vehicle company May Mobility is merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and will become a publicly traded company. It’s a deal that could raise more than $300 million for May Mobility at a valuation of $1.4 billion, the company said Wednesday. Once the merger is complete, May Mobility said it will be the first public company in the U.S. that is focused entirely on autonomous ride-hailing vehicles. This is meant to differentiate it from a number of other public companies working on autonomy, including Tesla, Rivian, Alphabet (with Waymo), and trucking-focused Aurora and Kodiak. The move sets up May Mobility to be a test of the stock market’s appetite for pure-play robotaxi ventures. It will also be a test of May Mobility’s approach to autonomy, which it pitches as “asset-light” and “partnership-first.” Instead of owning and operating the robotaxis, May Mobility’s business revolves around selling its autonomous vehicles to its fleet partners over time while maintaining control of any remote supervision and software updates. In exchange, May Mobility receives either fixed fees …

Robotaxi companies refuse to say how often their AVs need remote help

Robotaxi companies refuse to say how often their AVs need remote help

Published by skeptic

In February, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) sent letters to seven U.S. companies working on autonomous vehicle technology with a list of questions. He especially wanted to know how often these companies’ vehicles — operated by Aurora, May Mobility, Motional, Nuro, Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox — rely on input from remote staff. They all refused to say, according to the results of Markey’s investigation, which were released Tuesday. The information published by Markey’s office is the latest example of how hesitant autonomous vehicle companies are to share details about how their operations truly work — despite the fact that they are all experimenting with this technology on public roads. “This report has revealed a stunning lack of transparency from the AV companies around their use of [remote assistance operators] to help guide their AVs. The investigation exposed a patchwork of safety practices across the industry, with significant variation in operator qualifications, response times, and overseas staffing, all without any federal standards governing these operations,” Markey’s office wrote in its report. Markey said Tuesday that he is …