May Mobility autonomous transport vehicle based on a Toyota Sienna minivan.
Pedestrians engrossed with whatever’s playing through their earbuds cross a busy Ann Arbor, Mich. street through the University of Michigan campus without regard to traffic. An oncoming vehicle starts to wander over the center line, while a driver looking to make a right turn isn’t quite what the vehicle traveling the opposite way will do. The vehicle in which we’re driving handles those cascading traffic situations without incident, and, without a driver.
See for yourself in the video below.
The vehicle is a hybrid Toyota Sienna minivan equipped with the latest self-driving technology from autonomous tranport company May Mobility. It’s “smarter” than previous versions thanks to the just launched third-generation of the company’s autonomous driving system called Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology.
One of five lidar units guiding May Mobility autonomous transport vehicles.
Each vehicle is equipped with five lidars, eight cameras and five radar all feeding information to the electronic brain of operation which May Mobility co-founder and CEO Edwin Olson described as a “very fast simulator.”
In fact, it’s a lot faster than previous generations improving safety, efficiency, pedestrian awareness and traffic light detections according to Olson.
The “policies” in the MPDM name basically refer to traffic and operational situations with which the autonomous vehicle must contend and make safe and proper decisions on how to proceed.
In microseconds the generation three MDPM simulator weighs anywhere up to two dozen policies in a high-tech tournament.
Edwin Olson, co-founder and CEO May Mobility.
The policies are competing against each other in a simulator that’s on the car, and that simulator is operating in a digital twin of the environment that we’re in. Essentially, we can try out each of these policies on the fly and say, okay policy number one basically always just slams on the brakes. We can always do that. Most of the time, when we simulate slamming on the brakes, that’s a dumb thing to do because we almost got rear ended or we just created a bad rider experience,” explained Olson. “Of course, sometimes it’s just follow the car in front of you, chill out, things are good. Sometimes it might be, we should pass this car. We have all these different options. We run the tournament live and the vehicle can determine based on what actually would work well, what policy to implement.”
Another key element is the ability for the system to request help from a Tele-Assist operator. Rather than have a so-called safety driver aboard or a remote operator standing by to take over The May Mobility’s Tele-Assist operator merely monitors the vehicle, and if it gets in a jam its on-board electronics can’t figure out, the operator then approves the proper move, but Olson stresses, never actually drives the vehicle.
Founded in 2017, May Mobility’s mission is to provide lower-cost public transportation with its self-driving vehicles built in conjunction with Toyota Motor Co. Unlike robotaxis operated by a service, May Mobility contracts with various municipalities as an on-demand microtransit provider, transporting up to five riders at a time and can handle a rider in a wheelchair.
May Mobility autonomous transport vehicles are equipped to accommodate riders using wheelchairs.
It also leaves certain tasks to outside companies instead of keeping them in-house.
“Yeah, there’s the maintenance. Where were the safety drivers coming from, the attendant, the site management or the people changing the oil and rotating the tires?” said Olson. “We don’t need to do that. We can partner with someone like Bridgestone, sure. But who’s doing the ride hail app? We don’t need to do that either because we partner with companies like Via and Monet and others that we haven’t announced that are coming soon. They not only have the infrastructure to do that, but they have deep relationships with our customers.”
The company has been active in nine U.S. cities and one in Japan, including some early pilots, according to Olson. Right now, May Mobility service is available in Ann Arbor, Arlington, Texas and Grand Rapids, Minn.
May Mobility’s fleet runs on a hybrid powertrain because the vehicles can operate longer between fill-ups, Olson explained, but that doesn’t mean battery electric vehicles are out of the question, declaring, “So I feel like the hybrid vehicles like this are actually really good choice for many of our customers, but EVs are also the future so we’re kind of in that transitional period.”
Olson says May Mobility’s capabilities and business model are a sound alternative for some cities that spend more than a half-million dollars for each full-size bus with few riders, or less-dense communities with inadequate, or no public transportation.
Plus, he says, May Mobility’s autonomous transports solve one big problem facing municipalities that want to offer public transit but can’t because there simply aren’t enough drivers.
Looking ahead, Olson points to new fundraising rounds to build the company’s capital and predictions of reaching profitability by operating many fewer vehicles, taking advantage of its partnerships and burning less cash than, say, robotaxi company Waymo.
“You think about the partnerships that we built, both with OEMs that bring us customers, but also the some of the partnerships that we’ve already announced with Monet and VIA— they have they have the volume, so we have an actual path where we can see we can get 3,000 vehicles out the door, and by 2026, and we are a profitable company.”
