Tesla Targeting June 12 for Launch of Austin Robotaxi Service
Waymo announces three new ‘road trip’ cities, Zoox issues another recall after robotaxi moved following collision with scooterist, and why this analyst says Waymo could be worth $1 Trillion
Hey, it’s Harry! Welcome to the 112 new subscribers since our last newsletter. I’m excited to have you join the 1,449 AV enthusiasts, executives, and industry professionals who are already on board. It’s great to have you along for the ride as we explore the intersection of autonomy and rideshare, and the business of AVs.
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Top Stories of the Week
Tesla Targets June 12 Launch of Robotaxi Service in Austin (link, no paywall). According to a source who spoke with Bloomberg, Tesla plans to begin their robotaxi service in Austin on June 12. This person also says that Tesla just started public driverless test rides without a safety driver this week. The latter tidbit was confirmed by Elon on Wednesday but I do find it strange that I haven’t seen a single video of an autonomously driven Tesla without a safety driver. You would think that there would be at least one video floating around if this were indeed happening 🤷♂️
A couple of other observations about Tesla’s robotaxi rollout:
Older Teslas run on Hardware 3 and FSD Version 12. Newer Teslas run on Hardware 4 and FSD version 13 — obviously newer hardware and software should be better. Elon has also said that the robotaxis will be using an updated software version that the public doesn’t have yet. So we should keep this in mind when comparing the FSD quality on older Tesla vehicles to the Model Y’s that will be used with the robotaxi rollout.
I’ve seen a lot of talk about Tesla using teleoperators but it’s important to remember that teleoperators aren't designed to take over the car instantaneously. In fact, at 35 mph, a car travels approximately 51.33 feet per second, so if something goes wrong, and it takes a teleoperator even half a second to grab the controls, that’s a lot of time and distance that can be traveled by a vehicle. So while it’s better to have a teleoperator watching a vehicle at all times than not, it’s not a real ‘security blanket’ as some would imply.
Instead, teleoperators are designed to take over for robotaxis if/when the vehicle gets stuck at low speeds. So think of complex traffic situations, confusing pick-up/drop-off locations, or construction zones. In my experience, this is actually where FSD struggles the most (and Waymo to be fair). So I think teleoperation + FSD is a good match and using teleoperators (as Waymo and others do) is a fine strategy.
TDD Podcast
Inside Alto’s Fleet Partnership with Uber (link). I was excited to record this interview with Alto CEO Will Coleman since their new business model has a ton of parallels to Waymo. Alto owns their fleet (mainly EVs going forward), employs the driver (so full control, training, much safer, etc) and has a partnership with Uber that appears to be going well. Will also makes a good case that Alto is laying the groundwork for autonomy, and doing a better job than anyone else out there.
Cool Rides
Our first Waymo ride. Fun (link). She also got one with a cool livery 👏. Send us a photo of your favorite Waymo livery and we may just feature it in next week’s TDD!
Here’s another neat new Waymo livery taken in Santa Monica by TDD reader Joshua C.
My Waymo just inexplicably took me through an indoor Waymo parking lot and I assume that now that I’m at 200 rides it thought it was time to bring me home to meet the charging docks (link).
I lost my fully autonomous driving ‘virginity’ tonight (link).
The car drove itself. We just sat back and watched the steering wheel. Riding a Waymo in San Francisco: no driver, no small talk - just an empty front seat, by design (link).
The future is driving itself in LA! I had the chance to ride in a Waymo self-driving car, and it's a powerful testament to the incredible advancements in AI (link).
Just rode in a car with no driver — and no, this isn’t a future fantasy. It’s now (link).
One reason why I like featuring all of these ‘first ride’ experiences is because they’re fun to read, but also because it’s interesting direct feedback from casual users. These folks know little about Waymo other than what they’ve seen in an occasional news story or heard from a friend.
AV/Humans behaving badly
Ain’t NO way - NSFW 😭 (link).
Just watched a group of six teenagers pile into a waymo and at least one crawled into the trunk (link). Waymo is going to need an operator watching the camera at all times to prevent stuff like this during the Friday and Saturday night party hours.
Learned a valuable lesson on the way to SubSummit this morning: if you have a tight timeline, maybe skip the Waymo (link). Unfortunately, I agree. Waymo is not the best option if you’re ever in a rush and it is annoying that I have to constantly compare the route to Uber/Google Maps here in LA to make sure it’s not too high of a delta. A few extra minutes isn’t a big deal but if it’s going to take 10 minutes longer on a 20 minute trip because of the route Waymo takes, that is not a great user experience. I think this is just another reason why ‘Uber on Waymo’ in Austin and Atlanta will be a better experience.
Waymo Taped Up 🤦🏻♂️ (link). Not sure I’d call this an art project buddy..
Waymo to the Rescue 💪
Waymo Avoids Crash After Car’s Wrong Left Turn (link).
Waymo stops for a dog on the loose (link). This is one of my favorite Waymo videos so far since it was taken by a bystander’s doorbell camera and not provided by Waymo.
Waymo detects pedestrian from foot movement under a bus (link). This is cool.
Other Stuff
Waymo is a great product but I don’t see how they’ll scale exponentially with their massive opex and capex costs. For context, Waymo does 250,000 trips per week, while Uber does over 210 million rides per week.
Would Buying A Private Cybercab Or Hiring Out Your Tesla Make Sense? (link, no paywall). Another good article by Brad Templeton. There won’t be an amazing return on investment from hiring out your Tesla, otherwise Tesla would just do this themselves. More likely, the margins will be low and baseline demand will be handled by large fleets. Private Tesla owners could reap a lot of rewards though during peak demand when prices are surging. I’d happily let my Tesla go out for a few hours every Saturday night if it came home with a few hundred dollars.
Zoox Robotaxi Moves After Collision with e-Scooter Rider (link) by
. This incident has Cruise written all over it. Hard to say what happened without the video and I still do not understand why Zoox won't share footage with the public from incidents like this. But if Zoox then issued a voluntary software recall, that would imply that Zoox did something wrong - possibly not stopping after hitting the e-scooter rider. Sharing video would build real trust and transparency - otherwise I think it's fair to assume the worst.Aurora Innovation Driverless Launch; an exercise in opacity & obscurity rather than transparency (link). Some AV companies are handling their comms strategy well and others have some work to do. I also learned from this post that there may have been an ‘observer’ behind the wheel for all of Aurora’s ‘driverless’ trips - hard to say since the company has been less than forthcoming. I’ll let you be the judge.
New Drone video shows ~1,873 Jaguar I-Paces outside Waymo/Magna factory (link).
Mark Mahaney on CNBC: Waymo could be worth $1T (link). Mark Mahaney from Evercore said on CNBC that if Waymo were valued the same way Tesla’s investors are valuing its upcoming robotaxi service, Waymo alone would be worth $1 trillion—and yet Google is currently getting zero credit for it from the investor community.
It’s time to broaden how AV safety is evaluated and communicated (link).
Tesla’s head of self-driving admits ‘lagging a couple years’ behind Waymo (link). This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Waymo is taking a top down approach and starting with expensive hardware, Tesla is doing the opposite. The real question is if they can meet in the middle since if they do, that gives Tesla a huge advantage considering the number of vehicles they have on the road, are capable of producing, and the variable supply they can tap into during peak demand as mentioned above.
How Uber plans to counter the robotaxi attack (link, no paywall). Great piece by the German Manager Magazin that digs into Uber’s robotaxi strategy and thanks to Jonas Rest for quoting me in this article.
Waymo just announced three new road trips: San Antonio, Orlando, and Houston (link). Road trips are different from ‘new markets’ and according to Waymo, the purpose of a road trip is to drive in “regions where the driving culture and conditions differ from the areas we regularly operate.” So it does not necessarily mean they will launch in these markets any time soon.
Here’s a road trip they still need to take though:
Santa Monica residents go to war against Waymo, including obstructing driverless taxis (link, no paywall). Interesting dilemma here, but this line stood out to me:
The beeping never seems to stop, largely due to a state regulation requiring electric vehicles to audibly reverse like delivery trucks.
I grew up in Santa Monica so for those who may not know, the city is often made fun of for all of the silly rules and regulations it has. So boy is it ironic that an obnoxious state regulation (why target EVs?) is causing pain for local residents. Seems like they should stop blaming Waymo and give state regulators a call to fix this issue.
AV startup Nuro is now testing in Dallas, Miami, and San Diego (link). I might need to add a new section for ‘Testing, but not Deploying’ if this trend keeps up. Seems like a lot of AV companies are patting themselves on the back for testing and ‘expanding testing’ these days, but the only thing that matters to me is real world deployment without a safety driver. That’s something to celebrate.
Shout-outs
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Until next week.
-Harry