Uber CEO Says Musk Wants to Go Alone on the Tesla Robotaxi Rollout
Waymo is now doing 200,000 paid trips per week, SF’s biggest robotaxi addicts, and how Americans don’t trust self-driving cars.
Top Stories of the Week
Uber CEO Says Musk Wants to Go Alone on Tesla Robotaxi Rollout (link, no paywall). Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi shared that Elon Musk isn't interested in putting Tesla's robotaxis on Uber's platform, meaning they’ll compete in the future. He mentioned they’ve had talks, but Tesla wants to go at it solo, so in places like Austin, Uber and Waymo will be going head-to-head with Tesla. Khosrowshahi added that while the future is uncertain, Uber would still love to partner with Tesla.
Not a shocker that Elon wants to go at it alone. But I like Dara’s tone of late, Uber has made it clear they’d like to partner with Tesla, but if not, they’re going to compete. Let the games begin..
Waymo hits 122,000 weekly rides in California in Dec. 2024, per California Public Utilities Commission Data dump. I didn’t see many people talking about this data dump so I wrote up a detailed blog post about the findings. Waymo’s fleet in SF and LA alone is also now up to 730 vehicles (previously their entire fleet was reported as 700 vehicles) and their vehicle utilization jumped from 16 trips per day in November to 24 trips per day in December. That’s a huge jump and for comparison sakes, human drivers can often do 2-3 trips per hour. More cars (especially in a low density city like LA) likely improves utilization. In the article, I also extrapolated how many rides Waymo is doing in SF, LA and Phoenix based off their recently announced 200k total trips per week number. It’s nice to have two sources of data to compare and contrast.
Related: Waymo One is now serving 200k+ paid trips each week across LA, Phoenix and SF - that’s 20x growth in less than two years! Up next: Austin, Atlanta, and Miami (link).
Elon Musk’s Tesla moves to launch free self-driving taxi service in California (link, no paywall). Nice quote by
in the article too, “Getting the permits in place is a due diligence thing. The real question is: Are these things going to be safe on the road?” Tesla has rabid fans that would likely get in the back of a robotaxi today (I personally would not) so I agree with Phil that the real issue is how states like CA and TX will regulate Tesla. Because they’re going to take a much more aggressive approach than Waymo when it comes to deployment/expansion.Teaser alert: I’ll have a Lyft executive on my panel at the Ride AI conference in LA on 4/2 (use my link to get discounted tickets here).
Cool Rides
First experience riding in a Waymo autonomous vehicle in San Francisco. Super cool and highly recommend (link).
Waymo Zeekr in SF (link). I was hoping to see one while I was in SF but saw this instead. And I learned a couple other Waymo tricks around the 2 vs 5 minute pick up time. If you move your pick-up location before the Waymo arrives, it will buy you an extra few minutes. And if you open the trunk once the Waymo arrives, it will also buy you additional time :) You’re welcome.
I'm in San Francisco this week and I had to try out Waymo - the self-driving car (link).
AVs and Humans behaving badly
Waymo charged me $100 for smoking in the car (link). I’ve been thinking about these types of situations a lot lately. It’s really a fine line that Waymo needs to walk with passengers (same goes for the 2 minute pick-up mentioned above) since you need to appeal to customers, but you also need to make sure customers treat your vehicle with respect. For our human drivers, we call this being the ‘captain of your ship’. It’s tricky, but Waymo will need to strike the right balance between fining/banning bad actors, without limiting their customer base. Passengers do behave poorly even when there’s a driver in the car, so it will be interesting to see what kind of policies Waymo settles on since we know they’re going to be even worse.
Human drivers be wildin (link).
Other Stuff
Driverless trucks are coming and unions aren’t happy about it (link). Interesting topic. On the commercialization side, truck driving is a no-brainer for AVs, and the 'triangle issue' might explain the delay. Human drivers can handle loading/unloading, and AVs are great for long barren highway stretches. My Tesla 'FSD' works great on freeways, so I don’t see why more advanced tech (like lidar) couldn't do the same. Waymo's CEO also said in an interview at the All-In Summit that their vehicles handle freeways well but they learn more on city streets—plus, a deadly freeway accident could have huge PR consequences.
Traditionally, red states have been more business-friendly, but the automation debate may be different. I'm all for safe, thoughtful automation (ie I think we should consider a soft landing for Uber/truck drivers displaced by AVs to avoid catastrophe like the spate of NYC cabbie suicides), but with recent moves like Trump banning automation at ports and DeSantis banning lab-grown meat, it’s clear the old guard is shifting. It will be interesting to see how that jives with the new conservative tech leaders like Musk and others who are pro-automation and feel the benefits will outweigh any short term pains for a small number of workers.
I shall repeat myself for the 69th time. In a world where Tesla Robotaxi exists, Uber is worthless (link). If it was only Uber vs Tesla, I’d tend to agree with this sentiment. But Uber is partnering with Waymo and it’s becoming more clear that AV technology is being brought to market by multiple players. As more AV players come to market, it will be difficult, if not impossible to gain users, so where will they turn? Uber..
Let's take one more look back at autonomous vehicles at this year's CES. Because there was a lot to see and learn (link).
Los Angeles Fire Department Trains With Waymo to Handle Emergencies (link).
Nearly 10% of US Tesla miles were autonomously driven last quarter (link).
Survey says: Americans don't trust self-driving cars (link). The recent AAA survey shows that most Americans are still wary of self-driving cars, with 60% saying they’re afraid to ride in one. Interest in the technology has dropped to 13%, down from 18% last year. While safety features like automatic braking are popular, many are hesitant to trust fully autonomous vehicles.
$14,000 on Waymos?! Meet SF’s biggest robotaxi addicts (link).
Shout-outs
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Until next week.
-Harry