With robotaxis, Mobileye zags where others zig

Splitting the bill has become a surefire strategy for stepping foot into the self-driving future.

General Motors and Honda have pinned their hopes on Cruise Automation. Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen have done the same with Argo AI. More recently, Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group formed a joint venture to share the financial burden of the massive R&D required to bring autonomous-driving technology to fruition.

"The task is formidable," said Amnon Shashua, CEO of computer-vision provider Mobileye.

So it's curious, then, that in pursuing a technological achievement often compared to putting men on the moon, Mobileye and its parent, Intel Corp., have largely decided to go it alone.

Shashua offered further details on such a path in recent weeks, as Mobileye announced its $900 million purchase of Israeli startup Moovit, a transit app that aggregates mobility options and helps users plan and pay for multimodal journeys.

The purchase filled in a vital puzzle piece in the company's plans to launch a commercial robotaxi business in 2022. Why not partner with the likes of Uber or Lyft as so many others have done? Mobileye and Intel believe it's better to have complete control over every link in the technological and business chains.

"It's difficult to break the task into components that can be developed independently," Shashua said during remarks at the virtual EcoMotion mobility technology conference last week. "You cannot break it down. It's an end-to-end system, and everything needs to be clockwork."

Mobileye doesn't appear interested in vehicle production — it has partnerships with Volkswagen and Nio for that. But it has brought pretty much everything from producing silicon to mobility data analytics under its direct control.

Counter that with the flurry of partnerships and other investment vehicles prevalent throughout the rest of the automotive and mobility industry, and it's a notable juxtaposition to the course prescribed by Karl-Thomas Neumann at EcoMotion.

Shortly after Shashua articulated the reasons why Mobileye favored a vertically integrated approach, the former Continental, Opel and Volkswagen China CEO said it's time for traditional automotive companies to embrace the help of others.

"You need sensors, hardware, software and to build a system, and traditionally, OEMs want to own all of that, the IP, control suppliers," Neumann said. "In the new world, you need high-tech, deep technology, which you share."

By establishing joint ventures and partnerships, companies can share high costs and mitigate high risks. By going it alone, however, perhaps Mobileye is tacitly expressing something else: the ultimate confidence in a plan that, despite risks, might deliver high rewards.