A prototype Toyota Sienna minivan equipped with May Mobility's AV system.
May Mobility sees itself as a combination of team manager and pit crew for Toyota in the growing global jockeying for position in an autonomous-vehicle derby that has gotten more active again as the pandemic has waned.
The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup just announced the initial closing of its Series C round of funding with an investment of $83 million led by Mirai Creation Fund II, with Toyota Ventures among several investors returning to boost their stakes in May. Total funding has been $166 million.
“In our space, we’re seeing autonomous-vehicle companies need OEM partners to be successful — or, alternatively, have $100 billion in the bank; that works, too,” May Mobility CEO Edwin Olson quipped. “We see the pairing up between Argo and Ford, and Cruise and GM, and what this round of funding for us represents is a solidification of the May and Toyota alliance.
“Toyota needs an autonomous-vehicle company; we need an OEM to provide the vehicles to work with. They need an AV company that can move fast and attract talent, and that’s what we provide.”
The new investment, Olson told me, will enable May Mobility to rapidly deploy its technology on Toyota’s autonomous-ready platforms, including the Sienna Autono-Maas. While at first glance the conventional Toyota Sienna minivan and a May-equipped one seem the same, there are key internal differences in Toyota’s AV platform that allow May to modify the Sienna into a mainstay of its growing autonomous fleet.
“Internally, there is a different set of ECUs (electronic control units) that are designed to talk with an autonomous vehicle, built up in terms of redundancy and reliability,” Olson said.
Take power steering, for example. If someone is driving a conventional Sienna from a U.S. dealer lot and the power steering fails, the human driver can still physically turn the steering wheel and maneuver to safety. “This vehicle doesn’t require that — it doesn’t rely on a human body in the driver’s seat to handle a critical fault in the steering wheel,” Olson explained. “There’s redundancy at the actuator level. That’s why you can’t just go out and do this on your own — you have to have an OEM partner. It’s critical to have tight relationships.”
May expects to deploy a Sienna with its autonomous-driving kit by 2023. The new vehicle will add to the existing May fleet of shuttles based on Polaris GEMs and Lexus RX450h SUVs. So far, May’s clients are mainly municipalities, including Arlington, Texas; Indianapolis; Ann Arbor; and Hiroshima, Japan. It’s also participating in a public-private project in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has participated in pilots in Detroit, Columbus and Providence.
While some companies that want to supply robotaxis in big cities are struggling, May has targeted working in smaller cities yet in complex environments that include scooters, jaywalks and other features of traditional commuting and modern micromobility.
“All of our customer are transit-oriented, private and public entities, and bedcasue the Americans with Disabilities Act is an important factor for them, we have another way of having a greenfield, protective go-to-market strategy,” Olson said. “Our Sienna vehicles can be made ADA-compliant.”
In addition to North America, May is targeting Japan as an important market for a number of reasons. “It’s a huge market with a different set of problems than the U.S. market,” Olson explained, “It’s got an aging population, and they just don’t have all the drivers they need to get people to the grocery store and to appointments with doctors. So there’s a huge opportunity there for us.”
But the relationship with Toyota is crucial for May’s hopes of success in Japan beyond its pilot in Hiroshima. “How many U.S. companies are successful in Japan on their own? Not very many. We need that partnership with someone who can help navigate the relationships and regulatory environment in Japan.” Plus, May’s investors include Tokio Marine, a Janapanes insurance company, and Toyota Tsusho, a logistics company in Japan.
