Intel's Mobileye Starts Autonomous Vehicle Testing In Crowded New York City

(RTTNews) - Intel Corp. (INTC)-owned Mobileye, which specializes in making chips for vision-based autonomous vehicles, said on Tuesday that it would be testing its autonomous vehicles in New York.

Talking about the move, Amnon Shashua, President and CEO, said that the company is currently testing two autonomous vehicles in New York City, but plans to increase the number to seven "in the next few months." A company spokesperson said that it has obtained a permit from the state to test its vehicles on public roads and at present is the only autonomous vehicle testing permit holder in the state. Police escorts are no longer required for the vehicles, he added. New York is known to have some of the most congested, badly managed streets in the world and is always congested with people, bicycle riders and parked cars everywhere. These are not the ideal conditions to operate a AV, which requires good weather, clean signage and less aggressive driving from other road users for safe operation. Mobileye CEO, Shashua, however, said that this was one of the reasons for choosing New York to test the vehicles. He said that Mobileye's turn-key self-driving system relies on two subsystems - one, which depends on 12 cameras and no other sensors, and another that includes lidar and radar, but no cameras. The company will combine the two subsystems later in 2021, Shashua added. The company is testing autonomous vehicles in cities around the world to later launch a robotaxi service and said it would bring its technology to personally-owned consumer vehicles by 2025. Earlier this year, Mobileye said it would launch a full-scale, fully driver-less delivery vehicle service in 2023.