Intel's Mobileye plans to launch a trial of self-driving taxis in Israel in 2020, the company has told "Bloomberg."
Intel CEO Bob Swan who is currently in Israel was driven through the Jerusalem traffic on Sunday in a Mobileye autonomous car.
After the ride, Swan said, "The most impressive thing is to just to see how far they have come in each one of the successive drives that I have gone on over the last two years," He added that it was his third ride in a self-driving car.
Intel announced last October that Mobileye had teamed with German carmaker Volkswagen and its Israeli importer Champion Motor Group, to work towards commercializing a robo-taxi service.
Swan told "Bloomberg" that the the plan is to deploy the self-driving ride-hailing service in Israel first, then expand globally. Software development is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Mobileye, was acquired by Intel for $15.3 billion in 2017. The company has pioneered sensors that allow vehicles to recognize obstacles.
Asked by "Bloomberg" after Sunday's test-drive if he expected to see large numbers of self-driving cars on the road in the next five years, Swan said: "I will say I am more encouraged by what I experienced today than I was a couple of years ago."
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