Motion, the autonomous vehicle company born out of a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, told employees on Wednesday that it will cut about 5% of its workforce, according to TechCrunch.
The cuts, which translate to fewer than 70 people, mainly affect management roles and some employees who work in Boston, one of several cities where it is testing self-driving vehicles, according to the sources, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter. Motional. . The autonomous vehicle company last had layoffs in December 2022, when it cut about 10% of its workforce. That earlier layoff primarily affected the company’s operations in Pittsburgh, where it tests AV.
Motional operates an autonomous vehicle taxi service in Las Vegas (with human safety operators behind the wheel) on the Uber, Lyft and Via platforms. It also has a standalone delivery pilot with Uber Eats in Santa Monica, California.
A spokesperson for Motion confirmed the layoffs.
“Motion recently announced steps to reallocate resources to areas of the company that will immediately enable long-term commercial success, including staff reductions that affected less than 5% of employees working in non-technical roles,” Motional said in a statement that sent via email. “We continue to hire critical talent needed to develop our technology and achieve our commercial goals. We are confident in our funding roadmap and are well positioned for the next phase of our commercialization. Our team is focused on scaling our driverless services, expanding Motional’s commercial partnerships and further developing Motional’s next-generation robotaxi in partnership with Kia.”
The layoffs come a month after auto supplier Aptiv — the other half of a $4 billion joint venture with Hyundai that created Motional — said it would no longer commit funds to the effort.
With Aptiv pulling out of future funding, Hyundai remains as the sole backer unless Motional is able to tap another company to fund its efforts. Motion is also exploring outside funding deals, according to a source. The company has previously said in internal meetings that it had enough runway to last until the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Despite its financial woes, the company has continued to make some progress toward its goal of launching a robotaxi service using Hyundai Ioniq 5 driverless vehicles in 2024. In November, Hyundai Motor Group and Motional announced plans to jointly develop ready-to-use versions for production of the all-electric Ioniq 5 robotaxi at the automotive industry’s new innovation center in Singapore, the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS). A production-ready autonomous vehicle equipped with the kind of redundancies designed for safe operations without a human driver is a critical milestone required for commercial operations.
During CES 2024, the company announced plans to work with Kia on a next-generation vehicle that will enter commercial operations later this decade. The initial development process will begin this year, according to the company.
