Oxbotica and AppliedEV have announced a collaboration to develop a fully autonomous, multi-purpose electric vehicle capable of being deployed in a wide range of environments for a variety of commercial applications.
The driverless vehicle will initially be targeted at the industrial logistics and goods delivery sector, with continued growth expected in further industries as the number of vehicles is scaled.
Business cases
Oxbotica will integrate its autonomous vehicle software with AppliedEV’s programmable and configurable electric vehicle platform.
The go-to-market strategy for Oxbotica and AppliedEV is to focus on markets that have immediate economic business cases, and a mature regulatory environment to enable deployment at scale.
The AppliedEV platform, Blanc Robot, is modular and fully flexible, designed to operate as a fully autonomous vehicle and configurable for specific applications like logistics or industrial.
AppliedEV offers the Blanc Robot with an all-wheel-drive system, in either an off-road or on-road specification. Battery size is matched to the duty and charge cycles, with total efficiency up to 10 miles/kWh.
“Working in collaboration with AppliedEV to provide the market with an autonomy solution comprising both hardware and software with the highest safety standards is a singular and unifying goal,” said Paul Newman, founder and chief technology officer, Oxbotica.
“We have an ambitious deployment goal over the coming years, driven by an extraordinary market appetite for a world-class product.”
Julian Broadbent, founder and CEO, AppliedEV, said the two companies see an opportunity in the market to come together with a unique offering of strong commercial outcomes as early as 12 months. He added: “The real value of automated vehicles is to operate without the presence of a driver with high levels of safety.”
“There are not many instances where you will find full autonomous vehicles in the market doing a real job, with real economics. Removing the driver and passengers reduces the risk and creates new levels of value and service.”
Ocado investment
In April this year, online grocery company Ocado Group invested £10m in Oxbotica to help develop autonomous vehicles for “kerb-to-kitchen” deliveries that will be integrated into its online grocery platform.
Oxbotica’s relationship with the online grocer began in 2017, when it conducted a two-week trial with a prototype delivery vehicle for autonomous deliveries in Greenwich, London.
“We are really excited and supportive of this collaboration between Oxbotica and AppliedEV as we see it as an important step on our journey to developing advanced autonomous mobility solutions for the Ocado Smart Platform,” said Alex Harvey, chief of advanced technology, Ocado Technology.
Source: smartcitiesworld.net
Source: IOT NETWORK NEWS
