ECARX partners with May Mobility to expand AV capabilities

ECARX Holdings Inc. announced a framework agreement with May Mobility Inc. to bring ECARX’s intelligent driving capacity to May Mobility’s future autonomous vehicle (AV) fleet for scaling ride-hail deployment. The partnership says it has identified a third-party vehicle platform for initial targeted deployment starting next year, with commercialization scale-up in 2028.

A strategic framework for advanced autonomous mobility

Under the agreement, ECARX is expected to develop and deliver up to thousands of autonomy-enabled vehicles, including customized central computing platforms and a full-stack sensor suite, for May Mobility’s autonomy system. The pair says the collaboration will unlock significant new growth opportunities for ECARX and will accelerate the rollout of May Mobility’s autonomous vehicle fleet.

By bringing together ECARX’s expertise in full-stack intelligent driving solutions and May Mobility’s autonomous driving system, the pair says this framework agreement will leverage the best of both companies’ core competencies in intelligent hardware and software development.

“This partnership marks a major milestone for ECARX as we expand our global footprint in autonomous driving,” said ECARX Found and CEO Ziyu Shen. “May Mobility is a proven trailblazer in safe, scalable AV deployments, and we are proud to have the potential to deliver our cutting-edge L4 central computing to power their next-generation vehicles. This collaboration is expected to open exciting new revenue growth avenues for ECARX and further reinforce our position as a global leader in intelligent mobility technologies.”

May Mobility says its autonomous driving system understands the physical world through a predictive world model and reasons through it. Simulating up to 10 seconds into the future, the company says the reasoning model evaluates multiple competing driving strategies and executes the one best suited to the current situation. May Mobility says its autonomy enables safe, reliable autonomous driving for ride-hail services in cities across the U.S. and Japan.

“Autonomous ride-hail at scale isn’t built by one company alone,” said May Mobility Founder and CEO Dr. Edwin Olson. “It takes a lot of pieces, assembled well and our strategy is to bring the industry’s best partners together to do that. ECARX brings the engineering depth and supply chain expertise that turn a great autonomy stack into thousands of autonomous vehicles on the road at a cost structure that actually works at scale."

ECARX and May Mobility note they are jointly aiming to reduce the all-in cost of May Mobility’s AVs, targeting at least 50% cost reduction by 2028. 

ECARX to deliver custom L4 central computing and complete sensor suite     

As the exclusive technology provider for this partnership, ECARX is expected to design the following integration components on the selected vehicle platform to deliver a turnkey AV:

• Custom L4 central computing platforms: High-performance, automotive-grade Central Computing Units developed by ECARX, optimized for May Mobility’s driverless requirements.
• Complete sensor suite: A tailored, high-precision sensor package—including LiDAR, radar, cameras and IMUs—engineered for 360-degree environmental perception and L4 safety standards.

Accelerating global autonomous vehicle deployment

The partnership is expected to enable May Mobility to scale its AV fleet with ECARX’s technology, while potentially providing ECARX with a new revenue stream in the robotaxi market. The custom solutions will be deployed on the selected vehicle platform across May Mobility’s commercial ride-hail AV services, advancing the AV company’s Autonomy-as-a-Service business model. The total value of the project is estimated to be approximately $750 million over its entire duration. 

The actual scope and details of this collaboration, and the actual project value, remain subject to further negotiations and execution of definitive agreements. The deployment of these autonomous platforms is also subject to regulatory determination.