Jaguar Land Rover Invest In Driverless Taxis

Jaguar Land Rover has invested $3.8 million into driverless taxi technology as the brand increases its autonomous ambitions.

The British carmaker's technology investment arm, InMotion Ventures, put the money behind fledgling US-based start-up Voyage that recently ran a $19 million funding round.

The newly founded company, which consists of ex-Apple and Google engineers, has been testing self-driving taxis in San Jose, California and has grand plans for global expansion using its mobile app technology that lets a user simply dial up an autonomous taxi at any time of the day.

The self-driving technology is currently fitted to Ford Mondeo test vehicles.

Voyage recently held a successful $19 million funding round that saw InMotion tip $3.8 million into its technology. The backing by InMotion follows the firms recent $1.3 million investment into start-up Sheprd, that’s working on an on-demand school bus service, and previous investment into Uber rival Lyft. 

JLR has also recently been testing driverless vehicles itself, as it quietly begun sending out self-driving Range Rovers onto UK roads late in 2017.

“We are excited to be working with Oliver Cameron and his world-class team at Voyage. We believe they have the capability to quickly make self-driving, autonomous taxis in residential communities a reality,” said InMotion Ventures managing director Sebastian Peck.

Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron added that the company plans to grow into other countries soon.

“We are thrilled to have support from InMotion Ventures in this successful funding round. The investment will help our business grow in technical and operational expertise, as we expand into new communities globally. This is an exciting year for us with further passenger trials planned."

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