US tech company May Mobility has announced plans to deploy over 10,000 autonomous VW ID. Buzz vehicles for robotaxi services worldwide by 2031. Volkswagen will technically adapt the electric van, which will then be equipped with May Mobility’s autonomous driving system (Autonomous Driving Kit, ADK) from Chinese technology group ECARX, which is based in London. Another partner, German company Charlton Intelligence.ai, will support vehicle delivery and deployment.
Through this collaboration, May Mobility aims to reduce the total cost per vehicle by more than 50%. Development is already underway, with initial public road tests in the US scheduled to begin in early 2027. The first production-ready vehicles are set for delivery in 2028.
May Mobility operates as an asset-light provider. The company does not own or operate the vehicle fleets itself but instead supplies its AI-powered driving technology to external fleet operators and mobility platforms.
The AI software of the system performs all calculations on the vehicle’s local onboard computers rather than offloading them to an external cloud. This enables the vehicle to respond almost without delay and remain independent of a mobile network connection. Based on a predictive world model, the software simulates traffic situations up to ten seconds in advance and evaluates various driving manoeuvres in real time.
“Scaling autonomous ride-hail depends heavily on the vehicle platform, and the Volkswagen ID. Buzz gives us one well suited for it,” said Dr Edwin Olson, CEO and founder of May Mobility. “We think riders will love the ID. Buzz running on May Mobility’s autonomous driving system, and the vehicle will be built on economics that can scale with the robotaxi market.”
The company already has extensive experience in commercial operations, such as the collaboration between Lyft and May Mobility in Atlanta, and has completed over 600,000 autonomous trips covering 1.1 million miles in the US and Japan.
