CEO of self-driving startup Motional is stepping down

Date:

Share post:


Motional, the autonomous vehicle startup backed by Hyundai, is shaking up its leadership ranks. Karl Iagnemma, an early pioneer in the autonomous vehicle industry whose startup Nutonomy lies at the foundation of Motional, is stepping down as president and CEO.

Iagnemma will move over to a senior strategy advisor role, while CTO Laura Major will become interim CEO, according to a company announcement that was released Wednesday evening. Major will also maintain her CTO role.

Motional didn’t provide a reason for the change, although one source familiar told TechCrunch the decision was amicable. In a statement, Iagnemma said he was honored to serve as CEO and is “immensely proud of the progress” the team has made toward developing and deploying safe autonomous vehicles.

Iagnemma has been a central figure not just at Motional, but within the autonomous vehicle industry. Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, who became well known in academic circles for their robotics and AV research, were part of the MIT team that participated in DARPA’s autonomous vehicle research and development program called the Urban Challenge in 2007. The pair would go on to found AV startup Nutonomy (stylized as nuTonomy) in 2013.

Nutonomy never received the same amount of media attention as other bigger and better funded AV players like the Google self-driving project, now known as Waymo. However, it got the attention of investors and the automotive and tech industry when it became the first to deploy a public trial of a self-driving car service in Singapore in August 2016. A little more than a year later, Nutonomy was acquired by Delphi — now known as Aptiv — for $450 million.

When Hyundai and Aptiv formed a $4 billion joint venture in 2019 called Motional to commercialize autonomous vehicles, Iagnemma took the top leadership role.

Motional has made progress on its push to launch a commercial robotaxi. However, it has also faced a challenging funding environment that delayed its plans. Earlier this year, automotive supplier Aptiv — the other half of the joint venture — said it would no longer allocate capital toward the endeavor.

Hyundai ultimately stepped forward and in May agreed to invest another $1 billion into Motional. Hyundai made a $475 million direct investment in Motional and spent another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest. The deal gave Hyundai a majority stake, while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating.

But it came with a cost. Motional laid off about 550 people, paused commercial operations, and delayed plans to launch a robotaxi service with its next-gen Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis until 2026 as part of a restructuring. The commercial operations included taxi rides in autonomous Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in Las Vegas via the Uber and Lyft network.

The company also ended deliveries using its autonomous vehicles for Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica. A human safety operator was behind the wheel in all of its commercial operations.

The restructuring was designed to make progress on the core technology and the business model while preserving capital, sources familiar with the changes said at the time.



Source link

Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden
Lisa Holden is a news writer for LinkDaddy News. She writes health, sport, tech, and more. Some of her favorite topics include the latest trends in fitness and wellness, the best ways to use technology to improve your life, and the latest developments in medical research.

Recent posts

Related articles

How automotive exec Crystal Brown founded CircNova, an AI drug discovery biotech

Tiny Michigan biotech startup CircNova has raised a $3.3 million seed round for its technology that uses...

Apply to Speak at TechCrunch Sessions: AI before the deadline

AI Innovators, seize your moment! Have insights that could inspire 1,200 AI founders, investors, and enthusiasts eager...

Three reasons every founder and VC should be at TechCrunch All Stage 2025

From idea to IPO — where are you on your startup journey? Are you a pre-seed founder seeking...

OpenAI rolls out its AI agent, Operator, in several countries

OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator, its so-called AI agent that can perform...

Rivian will launch hands-off highway driver assist ‘in a few weeks’

Rivian said Thursday it plans to launch a hands-off version of its driver assistance system for highway...

Solar crushed 2024, but emissions were up as industry used more natural gas

The U.S. invested a record-breaking $338 billion in the energy transition last year, according to a new...

6 new tech unicorns were minted in January 2025

Despite a still tight venture capital market, new unicorns are still being created every month. Using data from...

Rivian inches closer to profitability but warns ‘changes to government policies’ could hurt

Rivian’s cost–cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that...