A Vehicle for Driverless Future

The IONIQ 5

Hyundai Motor's first all-electric vehicle IONIQ 5 will be introduced as a robotaxi (auto-driving taxi) in the United States starting in 2023.

Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and U.S. self-driving company Aptive, announced on its blog on March 30 that the IONIQ 5 will be the vehicle platform for its next-generation robotaxi. The company stressed that the first robotaxi named Motional will herald the future of transportation by combining the two most innovative mobility technologies -- electrification and autonomous driving.

Motional is planning to load a Level 4 autonomous driving function into IONIQ 5 robotaxis. Self-driving is divided into Level 0 to Level 5 and Level 4 is a self-driving stage that allows a vehicle to drive on its own without a driver intervention. Level 4 is virtually at the level of complete autonomous driving. Tesla's auto-pilot belongs to Level 2.


At the end of 2020, Motional signed an agreement with Lyft, the second-largest car-sharing company in the United States. Customers will be able to book a robotaxi through Lyfta starting from 2023.

Motional said the IONIQ 5 is being fully integrated with its driverless system. It also said Motional’s autonomy experts are adding technology that will allow the robotaxi to see and respond faster and more safely than a human. Motional’s IONIQ 5 robotaxis will then be put through many months of rigorous testing, racking up real world experience and navigating challenging and unpredictable road scenarios.

Motional recently successfully completed a test run of a driverless self-driving car in Las Vegas. In addition, the stability of its driverless autonomous driving was recognized by TUV SUD, a global test certification agency with abundant experience in technology evaluations of self-driving cars, for the first time in the industry.

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