Image: Mercedes-Benz USA
A joint project named “Athena” at Daimler and Bosch has officially ended, according to a new report on Tuesday.
Both German companies are officially giving up on a joint project to produce a robotaxi, a venture started back in 2018, according to a report from Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday (via Clean Technica).
Just as talks of autonomous and self-driving electric vehicles (EVs) continue to ramp up, the companies have decided to focus on individual autonomous futures instead of creating a product together.
The companies have agreed that following “intensive testing and by mutual agreement as best as possible,” each company plans to “focus on their individual development paths in the future in the highly complex development environment of fully automated and driverless driving in an urban environment.”
Cruise Teases ‘Poppy’ the Autonomous Vehicle in San Francisco [VIDEO] https://t.co/5oaF2dSXl3
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While the official details regarding an end to the partnership are “currently being discussed” according to Bosch, sources said that the project was dead weeks – with most of the team already having moved onto different departments and projects throughout the company.
Daimler is already working with Waymo on autonomous trucks, and Bosch has autonomous driving production plans of its own too.
However, Bosch Managing Director Harald Kröger said that the end of Athena may have been harder for Daimler than for Bosch, also going on to say that the challenge of autonomous driving was “bigger than many would have thought.”
