Intel announced that it will go public with its autonomous driving technology company Mobileye, the Israeli company it acquired for $ 15.3 billion in 2017. The chipmaker said that by listing Mobileye’s stock on the stock market, it hopes to unlock more value for Intel shareholders. Intel will remain the majority shareholder of Mobileye.
In a statement, Intel announced the acquisition of the company as a notable success, noting that Mobileye’s revenue in 2021 was 40 percent higher than the previous year. An initial public offering “provides the best opportunity to leverage Mobileye’s track record of innovation and generate shareholder value,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger.
The news comes as several autonomous and electric vehicle companies have gone public in recent months, with varying levels of success. Despite this wave of interest in public markets, the audiovisual industry has struggled with exaggerated expectations, missed deadlines, deals closed, and a host of technological challenges. Still, many companies have said they are about to launch commercial businesses after years of testing and research.
Founded in Jerusalem in 1999 by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, the company develops systems and chips to help vehicles navigate autonomously and provide collision warnings. Tesla originally used Mobileye chips for its autopilot system, but broken ties with the company after a fatal accident where Tesla claims that Mobileye’s technology was unable to distinguish between a truck crossing sideways and the sky behind it. Its EyeQ4 chip is currently used in the NIO ES6 and ES8, the Nissan ProPilot 2.0, the VW Travel Assistant in the Passat and Golf, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, as well as the F-150 pickup.
Mobileye is currently working on four different products offering varying levels of automation, including an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) currently supplying 25 companies and a “premium” ADAS to be launched with Zeekr, a proprietary electric vehicle brand. from China. Geely. None of the ADAS systems will include lidar, the sensor that uses lasers to determine the real-time location of objects on the road.
The other two Mobileye products will use lidar and are more advanced in their automation technology. Mobileye Drive is an autonomous driving system that uses the company’s EyeQ system on a chip, as well as a data crowdsourcing program called Road Experience Management, or REM, that uses real-time data from Mobileye-equipped vehicles to build a global 3D map. This product will be used by customers such as Udelv, Transdev, Lohr, and Schaeffler for applications such as autonomous delivery vehicles and autonomous shuttles.
Mobileye also aspires to operate its own robotaxis, and recently announced plans to launch an autonomous transportation service in Germany in 2022. It also said it will test its vehicles in New York City, a notoriously dense and difficult place to test AV, but it is still negotiating with local regulators for permission.
