Manufacturer Polaris Inc. is partnering with Optimus Ride, a Boston-based maker of autonomous vehicle technology, to launch a line of low-speed, electric and self-driving shuttles.
The companies, which announced the team-up early Tuesday, said they hope to bring the vehicles to market by late 2023, aiming the line of six-seat transports at locales like residential communities, office parks and academic campuses.
The low-speed vehicles (or LSVs) will be sold through Polaris' GEM unit, which the Medina-based manufacturer acquired in 2011. Electric vehicles have becoming steadily more important to Polaris (NYSE: PII) in recent years, with the company promising to electrify at least some models in its ATV, snowmobile and motorcycle lineups by 2025.
The GEM vehicles are already electric, and have been used as an experimental platform for autonomous vehicles before. Optimus Ride, a company that spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has already modified a few dozen of the Polaris vehicles, debuting them in relatively controlled environments in Boston and New York. (See a gallery below of a test in Brooklyn's Navy Yards.)
Optimus Ride Inc.
The new partnership will go well beyond such experiments. The companies are planning a full-scale market launch of vehicles that can seat up to six people, with position usually occupied by a driver converted into more passenger space.
Optimus Ride CEO Sean Harrington tells The Verge that the vehicles are capable of handling "a fairly complex environment," letting them serve as either a regular-route shuttle or as a point-to-point hailing service. Though they're capable of navigating themselves, the system includes monitors that will let engineers help out remotely if the vehicle gets stuck.
