Navya’s days are numbered. This Lyon-based start-up created in 2014 was placed in receivership by the Lyon commercial court after declaring itself insolvent at the end of January. Candidates for the takeover had until February 21 to come forward. Bids will be considered on March 7. 20 minutes traced the history of this “nugget of French Tech”, which went from being a “world leader” in the autonomous shuttle market to a stock market share priced at three euro cents.
Stall-free starting
Navya gets off to a flying start from birth. Less than a year after its creation, it claims “years ahead” of its competitors with its electric shuttles. It proclaims itself “the first company in the world to market” these machines. “Put things in context, Navya is not really the first, rectifies François Marmoiton, research engineer at the CNRS, Institut Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. In reality, it was Robosoft, in the Basque Country, which launched the first transport of the future in the late 1990s. But the Lyon-based company is one of the two historic manufacturers in France, along with EasyMile, located in Toulouse. »
Just like her “twin” from Toulouse, Navya is making her way to success. What sets the two companies apart is their production strategy. The engineer develops: “EasyMile partnered with a car manufacturer to make its rolling base while Navya bet on the internalization of all production. And that may have made all the difference. »
At the time, this detail is not worrying. The Lyon start-up saw its turnover go from 500,000 euros to 10 million euros. It even reached 20 million in 2017 with “full order books” and an IPO the following year. Navya is living her peak. François Marmoiton recalls that at that time, “we thought that in 2025 everyone would be driving in an autonomous vehicle”.
Technical issues that make progress difficult
The backlash comes later. From 2018 to 2022, the turnover does not exceed 10 million, the company faces heavy financial losses of 24 million euros in 2020 and 2021 with a 90% drop in value of its stock market share in 2022. “It’s not that easy to develop this technology and it’s expensive,” he explains. Despite its location in several major French and international cities, technical problems were subsequently observed, particularly at La Défense in Paris.
“The sensors are designed to navigate without infrastructure, analyzes the engineer. The shuttles are therefore not fully armed to face all the external elements of a city. It is also for this reason that it was difficult to offer trips without an operator on board for safety. »
A pedestrian overtakes faster than a shuttle
Navya still has launched tests, in 2020, on a “robot taxi”. For François Marmoiton, this “dispersion” in the areas is also what could handicap the Lyon start-up unlike EasyMile. Navya has also joined to the Bolloré group to develop an autonomous bus. “These are expensive technologies. Maybe the company should have stayed focused on the core business they wanted to launch,” he supposes.
Another technical constraint to the development of these shuttles: pedestrians. The researcher at the Institut Pascal says: “A person will move faster on foot because the shuttle stops at each obstacle. “Thus, these autonomous vehicles “would be really useful if they were deployed in the countryside”, points out the engineer. Before adding: “Users, such as elderly people who want to go to the doctor, would be less demanding on time and the vehicles would have fewer element constraints to go faster. »