Hyundai Motor has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion to acquire Motional. This investment would give the automaker a majority stake while also giving the self-driving startup the capital it needs to continue its operations.
The South Korean automaker has invested $475 million directly in Motional as part of a high-profile deal that includes the acquisition of joint venture partner Aptiv.
Hyundai plans to spend another $448 million to buy 11% of Motional's common stock from Aptiv.
Aptiv also said it plans to reduce its joint stake in Motional from 50% to 15%, giving Hyundai Motor the remaining 85% control.
Aptiv announced in January that it would reduce its stake in Motional, saying at the time that it would no longer allocate capital to the standalone company due to the high cost of bringing its robotaxi business to market and its long road to profitability.
Motional confirmed the new round of financing and Hyundai's stake increase, but not Aptiv's numbers. Hyundai said the amounts in Aptiv's report were accurate.
Motional was founded in 2013 as a self-driving car startup called nuTonomy, which was later acquired by Delphi for $450 million.
Delphi subsequently spun off its business, Aptiv acquired nuTonomy and Motional, and in 2019 became a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv.
Motional has tested self-driving cars with safe drivers in Boston, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Singapore.
The company's strategy includes working with existing ride-sharing platforms like Uber, Lyft and Via to offer rides to customers.
Motional has announced plans to launch a robotaxi service using self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 cars in 2024.
In November 2023, Hyundai and Motional announced plans to develop a production version of the Ioniq 5 electric robotaxi at the automaker's new innovation center in Singapore.
At CES 2024, Motional also announced plans to work with Kia on an upcoming vehicle that will enter commercial use later this decade. The first stages of development are expected to begin this year.
The startup is slowly moving toward commercialization and has launched pilot programs in at least five cities, but has yet to start charging for rides or ride-sharing services.