We’re growing Motional’s footprint in our hometown of Boston!
Home to Motional’s corporate headquarters, as well as one of our operations hubs and a closed-course testing facility, Boston has been a vital part of Motional’s international R&D ecosystem for nearly a decade.
To support the deployment of our Level 4 robotaxis, Motional has made a multimillion dollar investment in our Boston presence, including an expansion of our Seaport operations facility, extensive hiring, and increased R&D testing.
Motional doubles the size of operations hub and plans to grow team by over 100
The core of this investment is the expansion of Motional’s operations facility at Black Falcon in the Boston seaport area. The expansion will more than double the size of Motional’s usable space in Black Falcon and triple the available occupancy.
The facility houses Motional’s Boston test fleet and is also where our product, user experience (UX), hardware, and software engineers conduct hands-on work with the vehicles to develop the safest and smartest Level 4 systems that will transport passengers around the world. As part of this work, the facility has virtual reality (VR) and UX labs, where our teams continually test and refine the passenger experience, so future passengers can enjoy comfortable and convenient fully driverless rides.
With the added space, Motional is growing our local team. We’re planning to add more than 100 new Boston-based positions over the next year, including new hires in engineering, product, and IT. This follows nearly two years of extensive hiring, during which Motional has grown the Boston team by over 30%.
Along with the expansion, we are also increasing our testing on public roads around Boston. In 2016, Motional (formerly nuTonomy and Aptiv) became the first autonomous vehicle (AV) company to begin testing on public roads in Boston, and has since been testing in Boston longer than any other AV company. This next phase of testing will use Motional’s newly revealed robotaxi, the all-electric IONIQ 5-based robotaxi, which is the vehicle that we will be using in our fully driverless (with no one behind the wheel) public robotaxi service.
Boston has long played an important role in Motional’s history. Our roots date back to nuTonomy, which was founded out of MIT in 2013 and became the first AV start-up in Boston. When nuTonomy joined Aptiv in 2017, we put down our roots in Boston’s Seaport District, and in 2020, it became our global headquarters. This investment marks Motional’s next chapter in the city and further establishes Boston as one of the leading cities for mobility innovation.
Boston expansion culminates year of monumental growth for Motional
Motional has undergone continuous growth this year, with Boston being the latest in a series of important expansions. Starting with California, we opened a new office in Silicon Valley, a new operations facility in L.A., and began testing in Santa Monica. Furthering our western growth, we embarked on a significant expansion of our closed-course testing facility in Las Vegas, which will enable us to increase the volume and complexity of testing at that location by four times. Along with expanding our operations footprint, we continued to hire, growing our total team by nearly 30% this year.
2021 was a big year, but 2022 will be even bigger. We’re going to keep growing, but more importantly, we’ll get even closer to making driverless vehicles a safe reality.
