Uber Eats Uses Hyundai Motor's IONIQ 5 for Self-driving Delivery Service

Hyundai Motor Co.’s electric vehicle IONIQ 5 has been put into autonomous delivery by Uber Eats in Santa Monica, California of the United States.

Autonomous driving company Motional announced on May 17 that it remodeled the IONIQ 5 for an autonomous delivery service it launched with Uber Eats. Motional is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, an autonomous driving technology company headquartered in Boston of the United States.

In December 2021, Motional announced its entry into the autonomous delivery market by signing a partnership with Uber. This marked the first time that a Motional vehicle that meets Autonomous Driving Standard Level 4 set by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) was used for delivery. Autonomous Driving Level 4 means that a car is capable of fully autonomous driving that does not require driver interventions.

Motional unveiled the IONIQ 5 Robot Taxi, a fully autonomous commercial vehicle, in 2021. It modified the IONIQ 5 to enable autonomous delivery. When an Uber Eats franchisee employee receives a notification that a self-driving car has arrived at a designated location, the employee loads the delivery food into the backseat compartment of the vehicle. The rear seats are specially designed to accommodate food. After that, when the vehicle arrives at the delivery location, an arrival notification is sent to the customer, who can receive the food after unlocking the car door with the Uber Eats app.

Through this service, Motional and Uber will conduct analysis and research on technology integration, consumer demand, user convenience, and autonomous delivery functions in the future.