May Mobility in Ann Arbor has begun a corporate autonomous vehicle (AV) service with Toyota using the automaker’s e-Palette mobility-as-a-service vehicle at one of the company’s plants in Japan.
The company will use a custom version of Toyota’s e-Palette small battery-electric vehicle to act as a transit option for people at the Toyota Motor Kyushu Co.’s Miyata factory. May Mobility began working with the automaker’s next-generation e-Palette in 2022.
Since the project began, May Mobility installed its autonomous driving kit and Multi-Policy Decision Making technology in one of the vehicles. It then began testing the technology to ensure it met key performance requirements and improved vehicle behavior.
“Our long-standing relationship with Toyota is key to driving innovation within the mobility-as-a-service space and I’m excited to expand our autonomous vehicle product offering with the e-Palette’s larger, EV form factor,” says Edwin Olson, co-founder and CEO of May Mobility. “Toyota’s e-Palette platform together with May Mobility’s technologies will help drive us toward our vision of greater transportation accessibility across Japan.”
For the time being, the technology is used by employees and visitors to the Miyata factory during business hours Monday through Friday. The autonomous vehicle travels a regular service route that includes six stops that allow people to get on and off the vehicle.
The project is a test run for future self-driving e-Palettes to be used at other locations across Japan, according to May Mobility. Currently, the vehicles require an autonomous vehicle operator to supervise the vehicles self-driving functions.
The service at the Miyata factory is one of several operations planned for Japan this year. MONET Technologies also is participating in this project and will collaborate on additional services in the future. May Mobility also will work with its investor NTT for future service rollouts in Japan.
 service with Toyota using the automaker’s e-Palette mobility-as-a-service vehicle at one of the company’s plants in Japan.){kind=link}