EasyMile

French startup EasyMile develops autonomous vehicles and shuttles to transport both people and goods. Its products include “EZ10,” an autonomous passenger shuttle for shared transport for communities or private locations, and “TractEasy,” an autonomous material transporting tow tractor for factories, logistics centers, and airports. In addition, third-party companies can partner with EasyMile to build new platforms using its technology. Its vehicles can operate with Level 4 autonomy (i.e., fully autonomous vehicles limited to specific locations and/or conditions) and do not require a human driver but need human teleoperators to oversee operations. EZ10 was first launched in 2015 and received an update in mid-2019. The latest version can support 12 people at a time and comes equipped with an automated ramp wheelchair anchor points for the disabled. 

As of February 2024, the company claimed to have deployed autonomous solutions across 300+ locations in more than 30 countries, including Singapore, the US, Australia, Finland, and Belgium. As of April 2021, the company claimed to have 180 vehicles deployed worldwide and as of January 2021, the company had more than 10 Level 4 deployments in place. In November 2021, the company received permission from the French government to deploy vehicles with Level 4 autonomy on public roads in France from September 2022.

Key customers and partnerships

EasyMile has product development partnerships with companies such as IVECO, Sector, Transpolis, ISAE-SUPAERO, Ifsttar, Inria, and Michelin for autonomous tech development (December 2017), Sono Motors to integrate solar cells in EZ10s to reduce the number of charging intervals (January 2021), DriveU.auto to integrate the latter’s teleoperating platform into its system (January 2022), and Ansys for improved safety (January 2022). 

It has also secured customer partnerships with transport operators, city authorities, airports, corporations, business parks, and universities, and includes Alstom, a French mobility solutions provider and also an investor, to provide integrated solutions for urban mobility (January 2017), SAGE Automation, an Australian provider of industrial automation and control services (March 2019), and Norwegian technology park Kongsberg (June 2021). It also supplied autonomous shuttles to KelRide project, a publicly funded research project in Germany, that launched an on-demand shuttle service in Munich in September 2022; and won a deal to deploy an autonomous shuttle service in Terhills, Belgium in October 2022.

Funding and financials

In April 2021, EasyMile raised EUR 55 million (USD 66 million) in a Series B funding round led by Searchlight Capital Partners to fast-track product commercialization. The company specifically targets closed-campus deployments and had plans to introduce its tech for public transportation networks in the future.