Lyft’s European Expansion Will Now Include Chinese Robotaxis
Zoox clears regulatory hurdle and safety probe, Tesla hit with $243 million in damages over Autopilot lawsuit, and Waymo vs a firetruck in SF.
This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Terawatt – purpose-built charging for autonomous vehicle fleets.
Top Stories of the Week
Lyft and China’s Baidu look to bring robotaxis to Europe next year (link). The companies want to launch robotaxi services in Germany and the United Kingdom in 2026, pending regulatory approval. If approved, Baidu’s RT6 vehicles, which are equipped with its Apollo Go self-driving system, will be integrated into Lyft’s ride-hailing app.
This is big news since this is the first Lyft AV partner that is already doing paid driverless rides a la Waymo. For those not familiar with Apollo Go, I did an extensive interview with one of their executives (link) and the company reported doing 116,667 paid driverless trips per week in Q1 2025. So this will be meaningful if they can get approval.
I’m not an expert in European regulatory affairs but I do imagine that the biggest pushback will come from labor supporters (I mean someone’s always on strike in Europe..right?) like we’re already seeing here in Boston. Especially when you consider the fact that FreeNow is primarily a taxi based service with full time drivers, much different than the Lyft model in the United States where a majority of drivers are part-time. In Europe, these drivers depend on this income for their livelihood, and it is their career, so any threat to that, especially in the form of a robot, will be bad news.
Related: Listen to my interview with Lyft’s Jeremy Bird about their global expansion plans and recently closed acquisition of Free Now.
Designing Charging Hubs for Autonomous Fleets
This month, we are excited to partner with Terawatt, one of the leading providers of charging infrastructure. To learn more about Terawatt's network of AV charging hubs and track record of 99%+ uptime, reach out to Logan Szidik at lszidik@terawattinfrastructure.com
Cool Rides
‘I took a fully autonomous Zoox to work today... and it was amazing’ (link).
‘Great to reconnect with Mike Hollingbery and the team at Wayve for an autonomous ride around London’ (link).
‘I Tried the Most AGGRESSIVE Robotaxi in China, Pony.ai’ (link).
AVs/Humans behaving badly
Waymo vs Firetruck in San Francisco (link). I gave Waymo the benefit of the doubt last week when it was a bus, but now it’s a fire truck..it would be nice to know what's going on here.
"Safety driver" for Bay Area Tesla service manually drives to get out of mostly empty parking lot of Tesla HQ in Palo Alto (link).
Other Stuff
‘Tesla withheld data, lied, and misdirected police and plaintiffs to avoid blame in Autopilot crash’ (link). Good recap of the Tesla trial. TL;DR: Tesla had the data all along but lied about it (objective) and allowed drivers to use Autopilot in areas where it didn’t work well (subjective). The tricky part about this case in my opinion though, is that the driver had his foot on the accelerator, thus over-riding Autopilot.
Amazon's Zoox robotaxi unit clears regulatory hurdle, safety probe (link, no paywall). Zoox wasn’t allowed to run its custom-built robotaxis without traditional controls like steering wheels or pedals unless it cleared federal safety rules. After a 2022 investigation and a recent request for an exemption, the NHTSA has now given Zoox the green light to use its vehicles for demo rides on public roads. The agency also wrapped up a separate probe into a braking issue that led to two crashes with motorcyclists. Zoox had already recalled the affected vehicles and rolled out a software fix.
Waymo's New L.A.-Based Robotaxi Has 10 Windshield Wipers (link). The big draw with the new Waymo Zeekrs is that they’re much cheaper than the Jaguars and purpose built for autonomous ridehail. I’ll be chatting with
on an upcoming podcast to dig into the cost and all of the hardware/software details of this vehicle.
Tesla Robotaxi drives around Stanford University (link).
Waymo readies its robotaxis for winter weather (link).
How Motional is Accelerating Scale, Affordability and Safety with Large Driving Models (link).
Judging Tesla Robotaxi On What It Does, Rather Than What Musk Says (link, no paywall).
‘Last month's hearing in Boston on self-driving car was like a parody of the attitudes Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein critiqued in Abundance’ (link). I agree with Tim but I think the sentiment that human drivers feel about AVs is fair. Human drivers feel like their industry/job/livelihood may be getting replaced sooner rather than later. And there are real consequences to this. Last time Uber 'disrupted' the NYC cabbie market, 8 taxi drivers ended up comitting suicide.. (link, no paywall).
So what should we tell these human drivers and how should we support them, if at all? I agree that the solution isn't to ban Waymo outright but I do think we should have a little compassion. Here’s one neat idea proposed by
.‘Waymo has been involved in a total of 5 accidents with "serious" injuries, including 1 fatality. Humans were at fault for all of them’ (link).
Shareholders sue Tesla and Elon Musk on heels of deadly autopilot crash verdict, alleging its robotaxi violates traffic laws (link).
What else we're reading/listening to
Urban Proxima by
: Things people do in cars (link). Good piece - as a fellow former Uber/Lyft driver, you would not believe the things passengers will try to do in the car when there's a human driver in the car. And I think this problem is going to be 10 times worse with no driver. Especially when Waymo starts to go mass market and reaches the 'average rideshare customer'. We're already seeing some of this play out and it's a tricky one for Waymo to navigate. Human drivers can handle small cleaning tasks in between rides but Waymo can't go back to the depot unless it's something serious, and even then, they will lose money due to the lower utilization, and likely need to charge a cleaning fee for bigger stuff.Inside the Nuro–Lucid–Uber Partnership with Andrew Chapin (link). My latest podcast episode is with Andrew Chapin, Chief Operating Officer at Nuro, a leading self-driving technology company. We discussed Nuro’s recent partnership with Uber and Lucid, and their pivot from purpose built delivery vehicles into licensing their autonomous technology for robotaxis and personally owned AVs. We also touched on the differences between AV 1.0 and AV 2.0 models.
Understanding AI by
: Unions want to ban driverless taxis—will Democratic leaders say yes? (link).Neat Jobs
Staff Product Designer, Fleets at Lyft (link) via Chrysan Tung.
Shout-outs
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Until next week.
-Harry