Travis Kalanick Thinks Uber Screwed Up on Robotaxis š³
Waymo launches in Silicon Valley, seems crazy that AVs still donāt have autonomous charging, and why you shouldnāt mistake ridehailing for AV ridehailing
My annual Curbivore conference is coming up on April 11th in Downtown LA! Weāve got a great lineup of speakers and partners (Uber, DoorDash, Zoox, Waymo and more!) and AVs/automation/AI will all be big themes at the event. Plus, itās held at a unique outdoor/indoor venue in sunny Los Angeles - unlike any conference out there, guaranteed!
Prices will be jumping up on Monday and TDD readers can get 50% off early bird tickets until then š (Public sector employees get in free!) šļø See you there!
Top Stories of the Week
Travis Kalanick thinks Uber screwed up: āWish we had an autonomous ride-sharing productā (link). Well that was quite the headline, but Iām not so sure I agree with TK here.
Uber Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) was the first and only AV company to kill a bystander.
They invested billions of dollars into self-driving before the accident, and would have had to spend billions more. Iām no financial expert but Iām guessing Uberās public market investors might have had an issue with that.
Self-driving technology was not a sure thing like it is today with Waymo. There was no guarantee that it would work this well even if you invested billions of dollars more.
TK was also at the helm of the whole fiasco with Anthony Levandowski.
I think Uber is now doing what they do best, generating a ton of demand and building a framework for partners like Waymo (and Zoox, May Mobility, etc in the future) to plug into their network seamlessly. And then the Waymos of the world can focus on the technology side of things and make their product as great as possible, while reducing the cost, and expanding the Total Addressable Market (TAM) to every personally owned vehicle in the world.
Waymo expands its robotaxi service across Silicon Valley (link). They're now offering public robotaxi rides to folks in its "Waymo One" early rider program across Mountain View, Los Altos, Palo Alto, and parts of Sunnyvale. Waymo is doing a great job with weekly announcements and continuing to build buzz and momentum. But part of me is starting to wonder if theyāre moving fast enough.
Waymo doesnāt have any real competition in the United States, but if AV tech is eventually commoditized, they donāt have a strong moat or network effects, unless they are ubiquitous. First mover advantage is real in the rideshare industry, and itās the reason why Lyft will never disrupt Uber even though itās the same drivers, product, result, etc. So if I can get an AV on Uber (or Lyft) from Zoox, May Mobility or even Apollo Go, isnāt that just as good as hailing a Waymo?
Cool Rides
Finally found a Waymo on the Uber app in Austin (link). This is the big complaint Iāve heard from riders so far in Austin - itās impossible to actually get a Waymo on the Uber app. Customers need to be signed up for āWaymo on Uberā, request a regular UberX ride, and then hope for a Waymo. Frustrating for customers who want a Waymo, but I think the product strategy is smart since Uber is known for reliability. Every time you open the app, you have a car at your fingertips and a 3-5 minute ETA. Now you may not like the car, or the driver, or the price, but it will get you from A to B.
Uber could add a āWaymoā option to the app but since thereās limited supply, you would still need to have a human driver back up. I canāt imagine Uber would ever allow their app to show āno cars availableā or a 20 min + ETA like we see all the time on Waymo here in Los Angeles. So even though some customers are disappointed theyāre not getting a Waymo, thatās actually a good thing for both companies since it means Waymo vehicles are at max utilization. And then Uber still gets to serve the customer a ride with a human driver, instead of the ride not being completed (like what would happen on the Waymo app).
Took my first ride in a driverless car last night, and I have to sayāIām impressed. šš¤ (link).
I took a self-driving Waymo car in Phoenix today. My skepticism lasted about 30 seconds and then I was used to it (link).
AV behaving badly
Waymo almost causes accident (link). āWaymo could have caused an accidentā would have been a better title for this video. That being said, this does seem dangerous and I would not have wanted to be in the back of that Waymo as it sat in the intersection trying to make an unprotected left turn lane on a busy 3 lane street. Feel like these videos are few and far between so thatās a good thing.
Other Stuff
Seems crazy that we still donāt have autonomous chargingā¦everything else is autonomous but a human plugs in the chargerā¦feels solvable (link). I invested in a company (Volterio) that does this so I couldnāt agree more. I like the idea of automating binary tasks like this - plug in/take out. Automating other stuff like cleaning is tougher since thereās so many different scenarios and edge cases (trash, smudges, wet stains, puke, etc). The cottage industry around fleet maintenance is going to be huge though.
š Amazing tote and marketing. Iāve been enjoying the SF Standardās reporting on AVs and more broadly. Worth taking a look.
Can AVs Make Ride-Hailing more affordable? (link). Gridwise Analytics and S&P Global dropped a whitepaper diving into this question. And if you enjoyed this research, Gridwise will also be giving a keynote at Curbivore that should cover some exciting data related topics.
Donāt Mistake Ridehailing for AV Ridehailing (link). Nice article by
here and echoes a lot of similar thoughts Iāve shared in the past but with better graphics :) At peak demand, you can also charge peak pricing across every trip, so the potential revenue of these trips ($ per trip) is more valuable than at baseline. So if Waymo canāt serve those peak trips, itās a poor rider experience (no cars / high ETA) and a lot of missed revenue (especially since Waymo doesnāt seem to surge nearly as high as Uber does during peak demand).When it comes to Tesla, the other big advantage they have is vertical integration. It would be smart for them to own the vehicles during baseline demand since they also manufacture the cars. Hertz has had a lot of success renting Model 3ās to Uber drivers but the cars took a massive depreciation hit as Tesla continually lowered the list prices over the past few years. Depreciation is one of the trickiest parts about owning a shared fleet. Get it wrong and you may go bankrupt.
How Uberās new product chief is gearing up for robotaxis (link). Iām a big fan of Sachin Kansal and it must be an exciting time to work at Uber - thereās going to be a lot of fun/interesting work figuring out how to integrate AVs and humans across mobility and delivery. I can only imagine what the product road map looks like..
How Waymo helped turn the walk of shame into the ride of pride (link).
, co-host of the Autonocast podcast and the Ride AI conference (which Iāll be speaking at), did a Reddit AMA (link). I always like Edās analysis because he is in the weeds, technical and detail oriented.Robotaxis without a brake pedal or mirrors? Not so fast, feds say (link, no paywall).
Pony.ai CEO on Teslaās robotaxis: āWe havenāt seen their large scale testing yetā (link). The original headline of this article was āPony AI CEO Doubts if Tesla Can Launch its Robotaxi Service Soonā and boy did I get excited. But then I watched the interview and it turns out he didnāt say anything of the sort. And CNBC also later updated the title. The ironic part is that I think the original headline was reasonable. Tesla isnāt launching a robotaxi service comparable to Waymo anytime soon but they sure are fun to talk about.
Japanās Nissan tests driverless vehicles in city streets filled with cars and people (link).
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Until next week.
-Harry
Loved the scaling supply-demand graphic - being a part of the ex-ATG fraternity, I can attest that networking effects of similar AV tech companies will drive the collective progress for Waymos of these times.
Great Newsletter as always, Harry!