Mobileye
picked up more self-driving car business on Friday as the EV start-up
Polestar Automotive
selected the company to provide the “Mobileye Chauffeur” on its Polestar 4. The price point is worth noting.
Mobileye (ticker: MBLY) makes several driver-assistance technologies that, taken together, help cars drive themselves in certain situations. Chauffeur is the company’s turnkey solution “designed to turn a consumer vehicle into an eyes-off/hands-off system.” It includes camera, radar, and lidar sensors, as well as software. The cost per car is targeted at under $6,000, according to the company.
The $6,000 price is important.
Tesla
(TSLA) sells its Full Self Driving, or FSD, product for $15,000 and its Enhanced Autopilot for $6,000. Those are both so-called level 2 systems that require full-time driver engagement.
Tesla
hopes that FSD will eventually get good enough to become a higher-functioning self-driving system.
The prices Tesla charges, of course, are to the consumer. The $6,000 price from Mobileye is to the automaker.
Mass-market truly self-driving cars aren’t on roads yet. Most systems, which include technologies such as automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, and lane-keeping assistance, qualify as level 2.
Mobileye Chauffeur is intended to be better than level 2, with the car doing everything on highways. The plan is to add more driving situations later. The system should be ready by late 2024 or 2025. The Polestar 4 will be a 2025 model year vehicle.
“We are very keen to push innovation in our performance electric vehicles together with Mobileye,” said Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath in a news release. “We know that driving yourself is not always fun and exciting. This technology means our customers could enable autonomous driving when they want, making all future journeys enjoyable.”
In premarket trading, Mobileye stock was up 0.5%, while futures on the
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Co
mposite futures had risen 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively. Polestar stock gained 0.6%.
Coming into Friday trading, Mobileye stock is down about 20% over the past three months. Polestar shares are up about 10%.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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