CEO of Motional Steps Down

Motional, backed by Hyundai, is reshuffling leadership as CEO and founder Karl Iagnemma steps down

According to a company announcement on Wednesday evening, Iagnemma will transition to a senior strategy advisor position, and CTO Laura Major will assume the role of interim CEO. Additionally, Major will continue to serve as the Chief Technology Officer.

Although a source familiar with the matter informed TechCrunch that the decision was amicable, Motional did not provide a reason for the change.

In a statement, Iagnemma expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to assume the CEO role and his “immense pride” in the team’s accomplishments in developing and deploying secure autonomous vehicles.

Iagnemma has been a prominent figure in the autonomous vehicle industry and at Motional.

The MIT team that participated in DARPA’s autonomous vehicle research and development program, the Urban Challenge, in 2007 comprised Emilio Frazzoli and Iagnemma, who were recognized in academic circles for their robotics and AV research. In 2013, the duo established Nutonomy (stylized as nuTonomy), an AV venture.

Nutonomy was never accorded the same media attention as other more significant and well-funded AV competitors, such as the Google self-driving project, now known as Waymo.

Nevertheless, it garnered the attention of investors and the automotive and technology sectors when it became the first to conduct a public demonstration of a self-driving car service in Singapore in August 2016. Delphi, now known as Aptiv, acquired Nutonomy for $450 million a little over a year later.

Iagnemma assumed the position of primary leadership when Hyundai and Aptiv established a $4 billion joint venture, Motional, in 2019 to commercialize autonomous vehicles.

Motional has made strides in its endeavor to introduce a commercial robotaxi. Nevertheless, it has encountered a challenging funding environment that has caused a delay in the implementation of its plans.

The other half of the joint venture, Aptiv, an automotive supplier, announced earlier this year that it would cease to allocate capital to the project.

Hyundai ultimately invested an additional $1 billion in Motional in May. Hyundai invested $475 million directly in Motional and spent an extra $448 million to acquire 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest.

The agreement granted Hyundai a majority stake and provided the self-driving startup with the requisite capital to continue operations.

However, it was not without a price. As part of a restructuring, Motional suspended commercial operations, terminated approximately 550 employees, and postponed its plans to introduce a robotaxi service using its next-generation Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis until 2026.

Taxi journeys in autonomous Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles were provided in Las Vegas through the Uber and Lyft networks during the commercial operations.

The company also discontinued deliveries to Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica using its autonomous vehicles. A human safety operator was in charge of each of its commercial operations.

At the time, sources familiar with the changes stated that the restructuring was intended to advance the primary technology and business model while safeguarding capital.