Waymo May Offer Personal AVs in the Future (With Toyota?!)
Uber to partner with May Mobility in Texas, why Jim Cramer is betting on Tesla over Waymo, and CA is overhauling its self-driving vehicle regulations
Top Stories of the Week
Waymo, Toyota explore a partnership to bring self-driving tech to personal vehicles (link, no paywall). This comes nearly a week after Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said Waymo may offer robotaxis for personal ownership in future. From Waymo’s press release:
Toyota Motor Corporation (“Toyota”) and Waymo reached a preliminary agreement to explore a collaboration focused on accelerating the development and deployment of autonomous driving technologies.
The emphasis is mine, but to me, this announcement reads more like ‘we’re going to start dating but Waymo is also going to keep seeing other people’. Color me unimpressed. There aren’t any concrete deliverables, guarantees or financial investment so what exactly is there? Not a lot. But it is a first step, and I think this announcement follows along with the OEM strategy I outlined in my article on Waymo’s Master Plan.
Waymo is working with a number of OEMs (Jaguar, Hyundai, and now Toyota) to install the Waymo Driver on their vehicles for use in Waymo’s robotaxi fleet. But my guess is that Waymo is still paying for everything. Once OEMs or fleet owners start taking some of the financial risk, I’ll start paying attention. Until then, can anyone update me on how that Waymo x Volvo partnership is going?
I think the more interesting story from last week is that Waymo is considering offering robotaxis for personal ownership in the future. This sounds great in theory but of course it depends on the cost, and we will need to see some major product improvements to the Waymo Driver. At a minimum, the vehicle will need to be able to drive everywhere within a given city like Los Angeles. But would you pay $100,000 (or more) for a personal robotaxi that can’t leave the metro area? I don’t think I would.
So while this is a nice thought and worth dedicating some resources, I still think there’s a lot more immediate opportunity going after the ridehail robotaxi market and expanding the Total Addressable Market (TAM) there.
Uber strikes deal with May Mobility to deploy ‘thousands’ of robotaxis (link). The partnership kicks off in Arlington, Texas, at the end of 2025, starting with safety drivers in the vehicles before going fully driverless. Like Waymo, May Mobility’s fleet of Toyota Siennas are retrofitted with the company’s AV hardware. Also worth noting — Lyft announced a similar partnership with May Mobility back in November.
I don’t see any reason why every single AV player shouldn’t be on both Uber and Lyft, similar to the advice I tell human drivers. But it is striking that Waymo and Lyft haven’t inked a deal yet; I’m guessing Waymo holds the cards here but I am not sure why they wouldn’t want to explore working with Lyft. Any ideas?
Cool Rides
It was fascinating to ride in a Waymo driverless car—an impressive glimpse into the future of AI and autonomous technology (link).
AV/Humans behaving badly
Dozens of Waymos stuck at the airport waiting lot in Phoenix (link). I’m not sure what’s going on here, but Waymo is going to face some major challenges with high volume pick-up and drop-off areas (airports, sporting events, concerts, etc). Uber and Lyft have spent 10+ years trying to figure this out and it’s still a mess, and the process currently relies on a lot of human intervention/manual inputs.
Waymo stopped due to heavy rain?! (link). I’m not sure how common this is but Waymo needs to get this guy a refund and some Waymo credit!
Other Stuff
Cramer on robotaxis: "I'm putting my chips on Elon Musk. I don't think Waymo scales the way people think. Go and read what Musk said about what he's gonna do." (link).
California overhauling self-driving vehicle regulations governing Waymo, Tesla, Zoox and others (link). Under the new rules, companies would need to get a permit just to test with a safety driver, rack up a certain number of miles, then apply for a separate permit to go fully driverless — and one more to actually deploy in the state.
The updates would also open the door for testing autonomous trucks (over 10,000 lbs) on public roads. On top of that, all AV companies would need to meet new data-reporting rules and follow standards for how their vehicles interact with emergency responders.
Speaking of trucks, Aurora just launched their commercial self-driving truck service in Texas (link). They started running freight this week between Dallas and Houston with launch partners Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight — and so far, they’ve logged 1,200 miles in a single self-driving truck with no driver onboard. They’re planning to scale up to “tens of self-driving trucks” and expand service to El Paso and Phoenix by the end of 2025.
I haven’t followed the AV trucking industry too closely until now, but I always thought it was ripe for AV development. Long, barren highways should be a great use case for AV drivers and then use humans at pick-up and drop-off.
Waymo founder: Tesla hoped to compete with Waymo, but failed utterly and completely for 10 yrs (link). Waymo founder and former CEO John Krafcik responded to Elon Musk’s Waymo comment during Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, saying:
Tesla has never competed with Waymo — they’ve never sold a robotaxi ride to a public rider. They’ve failed utterly and completely at this for each of the 10 years they’ve been talking about it. In the long run, the cost of sensors has a trivial cost-per-mile impact over the useful life of a robotaxi, while also providing massive quantifiable safety benefits.
Waymo reveals the road beyond robotaxis (link, no paywall).
Uber Wants To Be Your Robotaxi Shop, Will Providers Let Them? (link, no paywall).
Waymo charging station is driving complaints from neighbors (link). Waymo responded saying they are in ongoing conversation with the City’s Department of Transportation, and are actively working with the agency to explore and implement mitigations that address neighbors’ concerns.
What else we're reading/listening to
by : AV Market Update CW 18 (link). by (link). I’ll also be going live on Rich’s radio show this Saturday at 1:30 PM PT to talk Waymo, Uber and a lot more. Listen in on KFI AM 640 in LA, or on one of the syndicated 450+ affiliates nationwide. by : Waymo and Toyota: What Else Ya Got? (link).Until next week.
-Harry
Really enjoyed reading your post! Thanks for the shoutout of my Newsletter the AV Market Strategist. Really appreciate that!