South Korean automaker Hyundai has established MoceanLab, a new mobility services venture in Los Angeles, California, as part of the group’s larger initiative to create a sustainable, connected future featuring multiple modes of accessible and integrated transport.
Hyundai’s new MoceanLab will provide mobility services to the City of Los Angeles, and expand its services to autonomous ridesharing, shuttling, multimodal transportation, and personal mobility. After a comprehensive and thorough review, the Hyundai Motor Group identified Los Angeles as the most suitable city to launch the MoceanLab initiative. The opportunities posed by LA’s large and diverse population, challenges with traffic congestion, and demonstrated commitments to transportation innovation and sustainability, including LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s initiatives and leadership, made it the ideal city for MoceanLab. Hyundai plans to explore and integrate new mobility innovations such as micromobility and multimodal transportation, and ensure the effectiveness and growth of mobility services throughout the city.
The first venture from the MoceanLab is the newly-launched Mocean Carshare pilot program, which will become a part of the City’s own carsharing permit pilot program that is being offered by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA METRO). The scheme will use up to 20 Hyundai IONIQ plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for the pilot program, which is set to start by the end of the year. The eventual goal is to transition the fleet to fully electric vehicles with a gradual expansion to a combined fleet of 300 Hyundai and Kia branded vehicles.
MoceanLab will further expand beyond the initial carsharing pilot program. In anticipation of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, MoceanLab aims to help alleviate traffic congestion and increase convenience by ultimately connecting customers to mass transit options around the city. This includes services offering autonomous ridesharing, shuttling, multimodal transportation, and personal mobility. MoceanLab displayed its latest carsharing and shuttle technology at last week’s 2019 CoMotion LA event. Presented by leading technologists, transport operators, government officials and venture capitalists, CoMotion LA has been giving the world a glimpse of future urban mobility concepts since 2017.
Hyundai is continuing its own development of new mobility services through the active establishment of joint ventures and partnerships. In September, the Group formed a joint venture with Aptiv (formerly Delphi Automotive), focused on the efficient development of SAE Level 4 and 5 driverless systems using world-leading autonomous technology. Earlier this month, Hyundai also began testing BotRide, a fleet of self-driving KONA electric SUVs in Irvine, California in collaboration with Pony.ai and Via.
“We will introduce innovative mobility platforms and demonstrate diverse mobility services in Los Angeles,” said Kyounglim Yun, executive vice president of the Hyundai Motor Group. “More and more customers, including citizens of LA and tourists, will greatly benefit from MoceanLab as its service gradually covers a larger area of LA and diversifies its mobility services. With such efforts, we aim to lead the technology development for clean mobility.”
