The BMW Group, through its BMW i Ventures subsidiary, announced a strategic investment in May Mobility today. The US-based company is one of the few focusing on developing a fleet of self-driving micro-shuttles set up to serve a myriad of purposes. There’s no mention just yet of how big the investment is, but it clearly shows BMW is focusing on new technologies and the way they can be scaled for various uses.
May Mobility began commercial operations this year, just over 12 months after the company’s launch. An October 2017 pilot with Detroit-based Bedrock was a key milestone in demonstrating the readiness of their technology for real-world operations.
“Vehicles and programs of all sorts are being announced or tested and trialed, but May Mobility is actually solving today’s transportation issues with self-driving vehicles on real city streets today,” said Uwe Higgen, Managing Partner at BMW i Ventures. “We invested in the team because they’re reducing the complexity of the problem to actually deliver autonomous mobility now, instead of years from now, and the feedback loop will be invaluable to the future of the industry.”
May Mobility’s team has deep experience in autonomous vehicles, combining both technical stars with business development and operations experts. “Communities everywhere are facing transportation challenges, and we’re ready to solve them with our fully-managed, right-sized microtransit service,” said Alisyn Malek, COO and co-founder of May Mobility.
“Our new investors will allow us to deploy to more communities even more quickly, and to grow our engineering and operations capability to deliver the best customer experience. It’s a great time to join the team; the demand is huge and the potential impact immeasurable.” added the COO, referring to BMW. May Mobility will have several additional pilots in the coming months.
