A model of 100 robo taxis that Hyundai Mobis and Yandex, a leading player in Russia's ride-charing and ride-hailing businesses, are slated to put on test-runs in Moscow and other Russian cities by year-end this year. (Photos: Hyundai Mobis)

Korea’s auto parts maker Hyundai Mobis unveiled its first driverless robotaxi in Russia in a joint development with Russian information technology company Yandex.

The two companies will test up to 100 robot taxis across the cities in Russia including Moscow by year-end. The robotaxis were developed on the platform of Hyundai Motor’s eighth-generation Sonata that was launched earlier this year.

In March, Hyundai Mobis and Yandex signed a memorandum of understanding for co-developing a deep learning-based autonomous driving platform.

Yandex is one of Europe’s largest IT companies that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning. It currently occupies over 60 percent of Russia’s search engine market.

Hyundai Mobis said the strategic partnership will establish a high-quality mobility service to facilitate advancements into the global mobility market. It is the first time that the Korean firm has signed an MOU with a global IT company. The auto parts maker said it will continue to reinforce global collaborative relationships to preemptively secure future vehicle technologies.

The two companies were able to transform Sonata into a complete driverless robotaxi in just six weeks, they said.

Robo taxi is a driverless cab that uses a level four autonomous vehicle platform, meaning that it is able to receive a passenger’s call and pick up a customer for a ride-hailing service. It does not need human intervention to be sent to the pickup point.

Hyundai Mobis was in charge of attaching autonomous driving sensors and controllers to the platform to secure the safety of the system, while Yandex was responsible for applying an algorithm, the companies said in a statement.

Hyundai Mobis unveiled Thursday a self-driving taxi vehicle that it developed through cooperation with Russia’s Yandex.

The auto-parts maker said that it plans to test the self-driving vehicle in Moscow soon and hopes to roll out 100 self-driving taxis across Russia as part of its trial service by the end of the year. The announcement comes after the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to develop the mobility service in March this year.

Mobis said that the two companies used Hyundai Motor’s Sonata sedan for development and achieved a completely self-driving platform in six weeks after the start of the collaboration.

Mobis provided the sensors and control systems required for the self-driving platform, while Yandex has worked on applying a self-driving algorithm on the platform.

Yandex, which operates the dominant search engine in Russia, is an important player in the ride-sharing and ride-hailing business. The company merged its ride-sharing service with U.S.-based Uber last year and reported a rapid increase in utilization since the combination.

President Park Jeong-kuk and his counterpart Arkady Volozh of Yandex hold a copy of an MOU they signed for their companies on March 20 on a j.v. for driverless tax business in Russia.