Last month, French startup Navya secured a deal with the University of Michigan to place two of the company's ARMA driverless shuttles at the university in late 2017.
The two autonomous shuttles headed to Michigan will carry up to 15 students and staff around a two-mile loop on the campus, sharing the road with regular traffic. The shuttles use a combination of GPS, cameras, WiFi, and LiDAR to navigate the streets, and according to the company, they are capable of safely driving about 30 mph (45 km/h).
The market has responded to the concept. In June, Navya announced plans to not only make about 80 driverless shuttles in 2017, but they also had plans to open a new facility in Michigan to help with production.
This week, we found out that the company has found a new home about 10 miles outside of Ann Arbor, close to its partners at the University of Michigan. According to The Detroit News, Navya plans to invest more than $1 million to open a 20,000-square foot factory in Saline, MI, and hire about 50 people to make 25 driverless shuttles by the end of this year.
The assembly facility is the company's first plant outside of Europe.
The proximity to the University of Michigan will be helpful, because the school will also begin testing Navya's driverless shuttles. The MCity autonomous research partnership associated with the university paid $500,000 for the shuttles and the operations systems.
In the last three weeks, the company has nearly doubled the number of autonomous shuttles in service around the globe. The company now has 45 shuttles in operation.
