Uber and Waymo Have Ended Their Partnership in Phoenix
Wayve launches $85M employee tender offer, Momenta kicks off $751 million target IPO, and Tesla begins public testing of Cybercab without a steering wheel and pedals
This week’s edition is brought to you by Terawatt – purpose-built charging for autonomous vehicle fleets.
Top Stories of the Week
Uber and Waymo Have Ended Their Robotaxi Tie-Up in Phoenix (link, no paywall). We knew the relationship was faltering, but this is the first concrete chip to fall. Austin and Atlanta are next in my opinion. It’s also interesting that we never heard Uber mention just how small the Phoenix deployment was until after the partnership ended.
Phoenix “was an intentionally limited deployment, reaching just over a dozen vehicles dedicated to the program,” an Uber spokesperson said. Waymo said the vehicles will be integrated back into its fleet to serve a delivery agreement with Uber rival DoorDash Inc. and a public transit deal with Via Transportation Inc. that began last year. Riders in Phoenix can still hail a Waymo on the Waymo app.
Related: Is the Uber x Waymo Partnership Coming to an End? (link).
Other Stuff
Wayve launches $85M employee tender offer at $8.5B valuation (link).
Wayve.. is allowing its employees to sell a portion of their vested equity. The $85 million tender offer — essentially a structured opportunity for employees to sell shares back to investors — is being led by the company’s existing and new investors at the company’s latest valuation of $8.5 billion.
Related: The $8.6B Startup Trying to Beat Waymo Without Maps | WSJ (link).
China’s Momenta kicks off Hong Kong IPO, targets up to $751 million (link).
Momenta sells driving-assistance software to automakers. The systems help cars steer, brake, change lanes and park, but drivers still need to stay alert and ready to take control. Its customers and partners include Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, SAIC, General Motors, BYD, and Audi.
Designing Charging Hubs for Autonomous Fleets
We are excited to partner with Terawatt for today’s newsletter, 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
DisplayRide Opens RoadData.AI to Partners: Millions of Miles of Real-World Driving, Structured for Physical AI (link).
RoadData.AI captures continuous, real-world driving across some of the country’s densest and most complex environments, and structures every moment around DisplayRide’s proprietary C³O framework (Cognition, Context, Outcome) — recording not just what happened on the road, but why, and what came of it.
Robotaxis drive miles just to get cleaned and charged; this new startup wants to fix that (link).
Aseon Labs thinks it has a fix: parking space-sized automated pods that can be scattered throughout cities to inspect, clean, and charge robotaxis.
Tesla: Engineering tests of the first production Cybercab have begun in Austin (link). There are just two seats and it has no steering wheel or pedals.
Related: Cybercab spotted on the 405 here in LA. 🤔 (link).
Trump’s Transportation Department Launches Commonsense Updates to Brake Pedal Requirements for AVs (link).
I’ll be speaking at SAE International’s Automated Transportation Symposium on July 30th at 11:40 am on the ‘Journalist Panel’ alongside Jane Lappin, Junko Yoshida, Alan Ohnsman of Forbes, and David Welch of Bloomberg. Feel free to reach out if you’ll be in attendance!
Lucid overhauls its entire C-suite under new CEO after 18% layoffs (link). Hard to see this as a positive for Uber’s autonomous vehicle partnership with Lucid. Replacing nearly the entire executive team is rarely a sign that everything is going according to plan.
Lucid is replacing almost its entire executive team under new CEO Silvio Napoli, bringing in a new CFO, CTO, and three other C-level leaders in a single announcement.
Tesla: First Responder Information for Robotaxi (link).
What else we're reading/listening to
The Road to Autonomy by Grayson Brulte, featuring Hertz CEO Gil West: Hertz Isn’t Just a Rental Car Company Anymore (link).
Figma Config 2026: Legibility by design ft. Ryan Powell - Waymo (link).
Redefining Travel Time with PIX Moving’s Autonomous Shuttles (link). Ben Hubbard’s latest article for The Driverless Digest, where he explore PIX Moving’s vision for autonomous vehicles as “moving spaces”, transforming travel time into opportunities for work, relaxation, tourism, and retail.
Autonomous Charging for Robotaxis with Rocsys CEO Crijn Bouman (link). My latest podcast where we discussed why charging is becoming one of the biggest operational bottlenecks for robotaxi fleets, how the Rocsys M1 hands-free charging system works, what makes an efficient robotaxi depot, and the biggest operational challenges AV fleets will face as they scale, among other things.
AVs/Humans behaving badly
‘Waymo’s pathfinding algorithm is on the struggle bus this weekend’ (link).
Related: ‘Waymo Took Me For Joyride’ (link). Waymo really needs an “Info” button that explains why it’s taking a route that seems out of the ordinary. Even a simple message like “avoiding traffic,” “making a safer turn,” or “road closure ahead” would go a long way toward building rider trust.
‘This (27 min. ETA) is ridiculous, and I have Waymo Premium’ (link). Waymo Premier promises “priority pick-ups”, but the challenge with that benefit is that it’s completely subjective. Unless riders know what the wait would have been without Premier, it’s hard to tell whether they’re actually getting any value from it.
AVs/Human behaving “goodly” :)
‘Because after a night out, getting home should be the easiest part’ (link). I’ve actually been surprised that I haven’t seen or heard many complaints about Waymo’s pickups and drop-offs around the World Cup. Given the crowds and traffic, I expected there to be a lot more friction. Nice job Waymo.
City of Austin: This morning we filled a pothole reported to us by Waymo through Waze for Cities (link). Love this idea for LA, but I don’t think reporting potholes is the problem... it’s actually filling them. 😅
‘Spotify now available on Ojai rides’ (link). But it sounds like it’s still a bit hit or miss. I’m not sure why music integration has been so challenging in the Ojai. I mentioned the same issue in my first ride review, and it still doesn’t seem fully ironed out.
Shout-outs
Big thanks to TDD readers at IATR, Upstream, Hankook, and IIHS-HLDI for referring new subscribers. If there’s someone you think would enjoy TDD, feel free to forward this email or use the referral button below, and we’ll make sure to shout out your company.
Neat Jobs
Data Scientist, Fleet Operations at Wayve (link) via Agata Rother.
Waymo is preparing for autonomous charging (link), and hiring a Charging Automation Lead (link).
Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager, Cities at Zoox (link) via Phillip Pierce.
Job Moves
Felipe Parodi: Waymo (link).
Andreas Lieber: Serve Robotics (link).
Val Scaglione: Altera -> Zoox (link).
We’re now at 11,000+ subscribers! Interested in advertising with TDD? Check out our media kit here and reach out to us. Newsletter spots are currently sold out until September but we do have podcast advertising opportunities available.
Until next week :)
-Harry