May Mobility to turn 10,000+ VW ID. Buzz vans into robotaxis by 2031

May Mobility has signed on to deploy more than 10,000 autonomous Volkswagen ID. Buzz vehicles for robotaxi services worldwide by the end of 2031, the company announced. Volkswagen will technically adapt the electric bus, which then gets May Mobility's Autonomous Driving Kit (ADK) from ECARX, the Chinese technology group based in London. German partner Charlton Intelligence.ai will back vehicle delivery and deployment.

The timeline is set: first public road tests in the US begin in early 2027, with series deliveries to external fleet operators starting in 2028. May Mobility says the tie-up should cut total cost per vehicle by more than 50%, and development work is already underway.

May Mobility runs asset-light, meaning it doesn't own or operate the fleets itself. Instead it sells its AI-powered driving technology to external fleet operators and mobility platforms. The system crunches everything on the vehicle's local onboard computers rather than a cloud, so it reacts almost without delay and keeps driving even without a mobile network. A predictive world model simulates traffic situations up to ten seconds ahead and weighs driving manoeuvres in real time.

CEO and founder Dr Edwin Olson tied the plan directly to the hardware: “Scaling autonomous ride-hail depends heavily on the vehicle platform, and the Volkswagen ID. Buzz gives us one well suited for it.” He added that he thinks “riders will love the ID. Buzz running on May Mobility's autonomous driving system,” and said the vehicle will be built on economics that scale with the robotaxi market.

The company isn't starting from zero. May Mobility has worked with Lyft in Atlanta and has completed over 600,000 autonomous trips covering 1.1 million miles in the US and Japan.