- Hyundai’s Motionless self-driving division announced that it aims to launch a robotaxi service in Las Vegas by the end of this year.
- Motional has its roots in startups that launched in 2010 and has been testing cars since 2021, but is now aiming to get serious.
- The effort could boost Hyundai’s self-driving game, but it faces stiff competition from Waymo — which is also on the cusp of using Ioniq 5 AVs.
Hyundai Ioniq 5 has been recruited into robotaxi service before. It’s the self-driving car of choice for a few startups, and soon it will be available Essential backup for your Waymo fleet everywhere Jaguar I-Pace SUV.
But the Ioniq 5 may be used for its most important mission yet, as its maker enters the self-driving taxi game more directly.
CES 2026 was the coming out party for kineticHyundai’s internal autonomous vehicle division. At the technology trade show, Motional officials announced that they aim to launch their commercial robotaxi service in Las Vegas in partnership with a major ride-hailing network by the end of this year. Motional will operate the Ioniq 5 cabin equipped with sensors, software, AI systems and hardware developed directly in coordination with Hyundai.
In doing so, Hyundai will attempt to achieve what other automakers have spent fortunes trying to achieve, but ultimately failed: building a successful in-house self-driving taxi division. On the face of it, that might seem foolish, given General Motors Its leaves are folded on the cruise After losing $10 billion, Ford and Volkswagen pulled out of Argo AI as their own robotaxi service. He seemed on the cusp of taking off.
Hyundai Motion Robottaxi CES 2026
Photography: Patrick George
But as Motional CEO Laura Major said, Hyundai is willing to play the long game here — and that game links directly to its other future-facing bets, such as Humanoid robots. At CES, the automaker announced plans to hire robotic workers at its factories this decade, under the auspices of another subsidiary, Boston Dynamics.
“I think Hyundai is committed to robotics, autonomy and artificial intelligence. They see it as having a profound impact on the world,” Major said in an interview with InsideEVs. “And autonomy is coming to the world first through robotaxis.”
However, the service still has a long way to go to prove this concept, both technologically and against bigger players. Waymo alone It aims to be in more than twenty cities By the end of 2026, Motional is condensing operations into one.
Even with Hyundai’s backing, can Motionall stand out as the autonomy wars rage on, or will the real fruits of its labor end up in the next car you buy from the Korean automaker?
Hyundai Motion Robottaxi CES 2026
Photography: Patrick George
Motional’s slow burn high
Motional may be a division of Hyundai now. But it didn’t start out that way, or even with that name.
The company has its roots in nuTonomy and Automatika, two early players in the AV space, founded at MIT and Carnegie Mellon in early 2010. It was acquired by Delphi (a former General Motors subsidiary) and renamed Aptiv, which then paired with Hyundai in a $4 billion autonomous vehicle joint venture. The code name came nextas well as more than 100,000 public test rides via Uber and Lyft. The autonomous commercial taxi service is expected to launch in 2022.
Things didn’t work out that way. As tests continued with human safety operators behind the wheel, losses mounted, Aptiv reduced its stake in the project, jobs were cut and… Business operations have ceased. That was in 2024. The following year, Major was named CEO of the company after spending years as CTO.
Photo by: Hyundai
“We really realized that even though we could come up with a safe driverless system, the technology at that point wasn’t cost effective enough to create a profitable business,” she said of Motionall’s years of ups and downs. “The idea that once you have a driverless system, you can suddenly deploy it globally has not been proven to be a reality.”
This experience reflects much of what is sometimes called “Independent winter“: The fall of several major players in the field of autonomous vehicles after huge fanfare and huge investments in the 2000s. As with the rest of the group, what has changed since then probably will not surprise anyone: the boom in artificial intelligence, Major said. With the advent of neural networks, cars did not have to be “retrained” anew to drive in every city they wanted to deploy in new places.
“This was a great moment for us, and this is what can get us to a driverless system that is safe and also generalizable,” Major said. “It can move more smoothly.” However, she said, Motional today combines the traditional rules-based programming approach to robots with end-to-end AI models, which the company hopes will allow it to do just that. Navigate difficult edge situations Which tends to trip up fully autonomous vehicles.
Hyundai Motion Robottaxi CES 2026
Photography: Patrick George
But this story could be typical for almost any AV taxi company right now. One big difference is Motionall’s relationship with Hyundai, Major said.
Ioniq 5 Robotaxi interior
If you’ve ever seen or ridden in a Waymo car, Motional’s Ioniq 5 taxi has the same kind of vibe. The popular electric crossover is equipped with more than 30 sensors, including cameras, radar and a lidar array. Unlike Tesla’s planned Cybercab or Zoox’s self-driving pod, it keeps the steering wheel and pedals. But it adds a set of screens for the back seats that the passenger can use to start the trip, ask the car to stop, or call for help. Unlike current Waymo cars, The doors close automatically too.
Hyundai Motion Robottaxi CES 2026
Photography: Patrick George
But while Waymo’s upcoming Ioniq 5 AV cars, or those used by Austin-based Avride, the technology in Motional’s cars was developed in-house with Hyundai — including its AI-powered technology suite. “It comes from a fully integrated Hyundai production line,” Major said. “They are sent to us ready to go.”
This puts Motional at the forefront A major initiative for Hyundai: Catching up with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and eventually full self-driving.
The Korean automaker doesn’t offer any hands-free driving assistance technology like GM’s Super Cruise or Ford’s BlueCruise, and company executives in the home country have expressed a desire to match what Tesla is trying to do with its full self-driving and Robotaxi service. The head of Hyundai’s advanced vehicle platform division recently resigned over slow progress in the field, even as new rivals from China rush to use autonomous vehicles in ways most Americans have yet to see.
Motional’s work is clearly aimed at moving that ball forward for Hyundai, Major said. “I think there is real value in some mergers and vertical integration,” she said. “When you look at the combination of (software-defined vehicles), autonomy, and fleet operation at scale… and when you can have a closer partnership and co-design of these solutions together, it opens up new opportunities.”
Hyundai Motion Robottaxi CES 2026
Photography: Patrick George
But it will also be a test of Hyundai’s ability to afford huge investments in autonomy with returns that aren’t immediately clear. Meanwhile, Hyundai — a well-capitalized Korean company insulated from the quarterly pressures that dog U.S. companies — may be better positioned to let these investments go through. If all goes well, these could serve as technology licenses for other players.
The Major certainly hopes so. “My vision is that eventually this will be on everyone’s car,” she said. “If you want to drive your own car, you can. But if you’re driving late at night, you can sit in the back seat if you want. And if you have your kids in the car with you, and you want to play a game in the back seat, you can do that. I think there are a lot of business opportunities, but bus transportation is everyone’s first start.”
For now, the goal is simply to operate commercial passenger transportation services in a way that makes customers want to adopt them. Do that, and the rest may fall into place quickly. “We’ve tried to be thoughtful about it all, to just make it a seamless experience for passengers,” Major said. “Safe, comfortable and seamless.”
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
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Source: Patrick George
