Intel-Owned Mobileye to Build Fleet of 100 Level 4 Autonomous Test Vehicles

​A day after Intel completed its tender offer to buy Mobileye (see the personals section of the Aug. 9 issue of this publication), the company announced its new subsidiary will start building a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles for testing in the U.S., Israel and Europe. The Society of Automotive Engineers scale on autonomous driving defines Level 4 as “high automation,” meaning a human driver need not respond to an automated system’s “request to intervene,” and is one notch below the Level 5 definition for "full automation." The first test vehicles will be deployed later this year, and the fleet will “eventually scale” to more than 100 automobiles, said Intel in a Wednesday blog post. “Building cars and testing them in real-world conditions provides immediate feedback and will accelerate delivery of technologies and solutions for highly and fully autonomous vehicles," said Mobileye Chief Technology Officer Amnon Shashua, soon to be named an Intel senior vice president and CEO of the subsidiary. "Geographic diversity is very important as different regions have very diverse driving styles as well as different road conditions and signage. Our goal is to develop autonomous vehicle technology that can be deployed anywhere, which means we need to test and train the vehicles in varying locations."