According to an article on Silicon Angle, Delphi Automotive PLC, one of the world’s largest auto parts suppliers, recently announced that it has inked an agreement to buy self-driving car startup nuTonomy Inc. for $400 million.
The company will pay up to $50 million more in earn-outs depending on how well the acquisition turns out.
Spun out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, nuTonomy develops software for powering autonomous vehicles. The startup’s platform can process the environmental data from an automobile’s sensors and make driving decisions.
The startup claims to have successfully deployed its software on a total of five vehicle models to date. The fact that nuTonomy’s platform can be readily adapted to different car types is a big plus for Delphi, which presumably hopes to sell the system to multiple automakers with varying technical requirements.
Moreover, the software is road-tested. Last August, nuTonomy started trialing six self-driving taxis in Singapore as part of a pilot project that was later expanded to Boston. Those two locations happen to be where Delphi has been testing its own autonomous vehicles.
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