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📂 **Category**: Transportation,autonomous vehicles,avs,hyundai,Motional,robotaxis,Uber
✅ **What You’ll Learn**:
Uber has added another company’s self-driving vehicles to its growing network of taxis. Hyundai-owned Motional’s self-driving version of the Ioniq 5 is now available for rides to and from five areas around the city – with an in-car safety screen for the time being.
Starting Friday, the vehicles will pick up and drop off at rideshare areas at Resorts World and Encore Hotels Casinos on the Strip, along with WestJet, next to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Motional AVs will also handle trips to and from the Town Square shopping center near the city’s airport, and on the pier in downtown Las Vegas.
Uber and Motional said on Friday they plan to expand their operating area in the future, but did not provide details. As in other cities, there is no way to specifically request a robotaxi ride. Customers will increase the chance of getting one by enabling autonomous vehicle pickup within the Uber app.
The companies said they expect to be able to operate fully self-driving service in Las Vegas by the end of this year.
The launch in Las Vegas is a major milestone for Motional, which found itself in real trouble two years ago. Created as a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, the company has been late to its goal of launching a robotaxi service while competing with Uber Lyft. Aptiv pulled out of financing the joint venture, leaving Hyundai to decide whether to pick up the financial slack or cut bait.
Hyundai decided to pump another $1 billion into Motional, while the wholly-owned AV startup underwent a restructuring that led to about 40% of its workforce being laid off. It has also reshaped how autonomous vehicle technology is built. Similar to many other players in the industry, Motional decided to focus on a more neural network-based approach.
“We saw that there was huge potential with all the advancements that were happening in AI; we also saw that while we had a safe driverless system, there was a gap in access to an affordable solution that could be rolled out and scaled globally,” said Laura Major, president and CEO of Motional, during a presentation at the company’s facilities in Las Vegas during CES 2026. “So we made the very difficult decision to pause our commercial activities, and slow down in the near term until we can accelerate.”
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Demos at a major tech conference in January looked promising, even if some of the consumer-facing software was still a bit incomplete. Motional ran a robotaxi service in the months that followed in Las Vegas for its employees. It previously shared plans to launch in multiple cities with both Uber and Lyft.
For Uber, Motional is one of several global partners in the field of autonomous vehicles. The giant company in the field of passenger transportation services has spent the past two years signing deals with more than 25 companies around the world to bring self-driving vehicles to its platform. This week alone, Uber announced plans to add self-driving Nissan Leaf EVs to its network in Tokyo (backed by British self-driving vehicle technology startup Wayve) and Zoox robotaxis to its app in Las Vegas later this year.
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