Motional, a self-driving car startup backed by Hyundai, is shaking up the leadership ranks. Karl Iagnemma, an early pioneer in the self-driving car industry who owns Nutonomy, the startup that Motional is based on, is stepping down as president and CEO.
According to a company announcement made Wednesday evening, Iagnemma will move to a senior strategic advisor role, while CTO Laura Major will become interim CEO. Major will also remain in her CTO role.
Motional didn’t disclose the reason for the change, but a source told TechCrunch that the decision was amicable. Iagnemma said in a statement that he was honored to serve as CEO and was “incredibly proud” of the “progress” the team has made to develop and deploy safe autonomous vehicles.
Iagnemma has been a central figure in the autonomous vehicle industry, not just at Motional. Iagnemma and Emilio Frazzoli, who are well-known in academia for their work on robotics and AV, were part of an MIT team that participated in DARPA’s autonomous vehicle research and development program called the Urban Challenge in 2007. The pair founded the AV startup Nutonomy (styled nuTonomy) in 2013.
Nutonomy hasn’t gotten as much media attention as other, bigger, better-funded AV players, like Google’s self-driving project, now known as Waymo. But it got the attention of investors and the automotive and tech industries when it conducted its first public pilot of a self-driving car service in Singapore in August 2016. A little over a year later, Nutonomy was acquired by Delphi, now known as Aptiv, for $450 million.
In 2019, when Hyundai Motor Company and Aptiv formed a $4 billion joint venture called Motional to commercialize self-driving cars, Iagnemma served as CEO.
Motional has made progress toward launching a commercial robotaxi, but it has also faced a difficult funding environment that has delayed its plans. Earlier this year, the other half of the joint venture, automotive supplier Aptiv, said it would no longer allocate capital to the business.
Hyundai eventually stepped in and agreed to invest another $1 billion in Motional in May. Hyundai invested $475 million directly in Motional and spent another $448 million to acquire an 11% stake in Aptiv’s common stock. The deal gave Hyundai a majority stake and gave the self-driving startup the capital it needed to continue operating.
But it came at a cost. Motional laid off about 550 people, shut down commercial operations, and delayed plans to launch a robotaxi service using next-generation Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis until 2026 as part of the restructuring. The commercial operation involved taxi rides in self-driving Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in Las Vegas through the Uber and Lyft networks.
The company also ended autonomous vehicle deliveries for Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica. All commercial operations now have human safety operators behind the wheel.
The restructuring was designed to preserve capital while advancing core technologies and business models, according to people familiar with the changes at the time.
