Wayve and Stellantis Partner on Autonomous Driving
Waymo halts freeway rides and suspends service in Atlanta and Texas, Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators, and why it might not make sense for you to own a self-driving car
This week’s edition is brought to you by Virewirx. Enable full autonomy with Virewirx’s VX60, a high-performance 60 GHz wireless system for fast and scalable robotaxi data movement.
Top Stories of the Week
Wayve to power STLA AutoDrive in Stellantis vehicles (link).
Stellantis and Wayve have entered a strategic technology partnership under which Stellantis will integrate the Wayve AI Driver into its STLA AutoDrive platform, supporting hands-free Level 2++ supervised automated driving across urban and highway environments. The first vehicle integration is scheduled to launch in North America in 2028.
Related: Stellantis extends Applied Intuition partnership (link).
It’s exciting to see more OEM partnerships dropping with AV companies and this is also one of the themes we’ll be exploring at the Detroit edition of our Urban Autonomy Summit presented by Nexar on June 9. We’re less than 3 weeks away and can’t wait to show you what we have in store. RSVP here.
Waymo halts freeway rides after robotaxis struggle in construction zones (link). We knew something was up for a few days before this announcement, but it’s probably smart for Waymo to be cautious here. I do wonder whether these types of incidents cause any long term brand damage though. If riders start relying on Waymo for freeway access or general transportation, it’s not great to suddenly lose those capabilities, or see service constrained by construction zones, weather, or other operational limitations.
Waymo has suspended robotaxi service on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami as it works to improve performance in construction zones, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. Waymo said it’s in the process of integrating “recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.” Waymo robotaxis are still operating on surface streets in those cities.
Related: Waymo Suspends Service in Atlanta as Robotaxis Stumped by Floods (link, no paywall).
Other Stuff
Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators (link). The crashes appear relatively minor, but the bigger unanswered question is the denominator: how often are teleoperators intervening and over how many total miles?
Tesla Robotaxis have crashed at least twice since July 2025 while a teleoperator was remotely driving the vehicles, according to newly unredacted information submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Both crashes happened in Austin, Texas, and occurred at low speeds. In each case, there was a safety monitor behind the wheel and no passengers were onboard.
Turn Signal: Confessions of a (former) robotaxi hater (link). In depth comparison of Waymo, Zoox and Tesla’s robotaxi:
“I do think we’re a little past the stage where one bad incident can kill a company,” Harry Campbell, founder of The Driverless Digest, told Sherwood News.
An S.F. doctor sued Waymo for allegedly flagging him as a terrorist. Here's why he dropped the case (link, no paywall). I was a little surprised to learn that Waymo reportedly cross checks riders against sanctions lists as part of its identity verification process. One criticism of Uber has long been that almost anyone can sign up and ride, but maybe things change when you own the car and have no driver onboard? 🤔
Some people who worked with Waymo told him that the company’s identity verification process cross-checks the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list compiled by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The government watch list includes the names of terrorists, narcotics traffickers and people tied to oppressive regimes or national security threats, among others. The list did not contain the name Nasser Mohamed, but it bears similarities to “one or more Muslim or Middle Eastern names on the list,” the lawsuit claimed.
‘California’s new AV rule is a signal that the regulatory conversation is moving from incident reporting toward risk measurement’ (link).
‘Waymo Spotted in Detroit’ (link).
Musk says Tesla unsupervised FSD will be ‘widespread’ in the US by year-end — again (link).
Waymo Fleet More Than Triples In Size Year-over-Year, According to NHTSA Recall Data (link).
‘Waymo may not have a demand problem. It may have a car problem’ (link).
Related: Stay tuned for my upcoming podcast interview with Eduardo Rojas, founding member of Uber’s Autonomous Mobility & Delivery team. Subscribe today so you don’t miss it!
Uber is deploying its own self-driving cars again, just not as robotaxis (link, no paywall). This is interesting because Uber famously doesn’t own vehicles, so this could mark the start of a new internal fleet, even if it’s being used primarily for AV data collection.
Uber is putting its own autonomous vehicles back on the road as part of its new AV Lab project to collect data for its dozens of robotaxi partners. The cars will be fitted with all the sensors typical of self-driving cars, like cameras, lidar, and radar. But notably the vehicles will not be operating as robotaxis, just gathering data for Uber’s dozens of robotaxi partners… These vehicles, which will be manually driven, will generate revenue and complete regular Uber trips.
‘Waymo Ojai Ride Inside’ (link). I’m 6’3” so was hoping for a little more legroom 😅 Hopefully the front seat automatically moves up when needed.
Why it might not make sense for you to own a self-driving car (link). I like the idea of personally owned AVs, but it seems tough to pursue both (vehicle production and AV tech) business models at once. Waymo feels like it’s in a much better position to refine the tech through robotaxi operations first, then potentially lease or sell vehicles to consumers down the line.
If a robotaxi’s hardware proves inadequate, the company can upgrade it without angering early adopters. A company can offer robotaxi service in one city without annoying customers who want to go somewhere else. Robotaxi companies never need to haggle with customers about paying for maintenance and repairs. And when customers hail a robotaxi, they’re only betting that it will get them across town. They don’t need to worry about whether the company will still be around 10 years later.
Waymos navigate Bay to Breakers (link).
Related: ‘Waymo Zeekr wearing a costume for bay to breakers’ (link).
‘It’s so neat. Self-driving cars have vestigial structures just like whales’ (link).
Faster Data Off the Vehicle—Faster AI on the Road
Virewirx’s VX60 High Performance Wireless System has piqued our interest—that’s why we’re partnering with them this week to share their unique millimeter wave system built to move massive AV fleet data quickly and reliably. Reach out to Brian Lee at info@virewirx.com to learn more.
‘Apollo Go had a strong start to 2026’ (link). I’m still wondering what happened with their outage in Wuhan though.
WeRide Announces Strong Q1 2026 Financial Results: Total Revenue Hit US$16.5 Million, Driven by Robotaxi and ADAS Commercialization (link).
Waymo is now the same price, or more, than Uber Black and Lyft Black (link).
60 Minutes: Robotaxis coming to London pose threat to cabbies who memorize 25,000 streets to earn licenses (link). I disagree with the cab drivers interviewed in this story. Knowing landmarks, directions, etc. is definitely valuable, but technology like Google Maps and Waze can, and should, complement the job. Memorizing routes was a much bigger advantage before smartphones, real time traffic data, and navigation tools became ubiquitous.
Related: How Will London’s Driver Market Respond to Autonomous Vehicles? (link).
Robots cleaning water at Port of Los Angeles; tons of trash to be removed over next several months (link).
Xpeng mass-produced robotaxi rolls off production line (link).
Unlike many rival autonomous systems, the robotaxi does not use LiDAR sensors or high-definition maps. Instead, it relies on a “pure vision” approach driven by Xpeng’s VLA 2.0 end-to-end AI model… Pilot operations are slated to begin in the second half of this year to test technical performance, user acceptance and its business model. Xpeng is aiming for fully driverless operations, without an on-site safety officer, by early 2027.
What else we're reading/listening to
Autonomy Insiders by Daniel Abreu Marques: Is the Uber-Waymo Partnership Coming to an End? (link). It was a pleasure to be interviewed in this episode where we discussed Waymo and Uber’s relationship, and what’s really going on between the two companies.
Waymo Testing New ‘Snooze Fee’ That Lets Riders Delay Pickup (link). Our latest article that’s already getting some love on Reddit and X.
Sidebar by Courthouse News: The Self-Driving Dilemma (link), featuring one of our contributors, Sergio Avedian.
AV Events
Ride AI 2027 is returning to the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco on April 7, 2027 (link). And relatedly, check out the sizzle reel (link). I hope to make it next year.
The Automated Transportation Symposium will be taking place from July 27 - 30 in San Diego (link). Hub International SVP of Innovation Steve Miller will also be speaking on the “Communicating Safety: the L2 (plus) and L3 Puzzle” panel on July 28 (link).
‘Over 100 people have registered for the NYU Cardozo Robotaxi Symposium! It’s now ten days away--Thursday, May 28 at New York University School of Law!’ (link).
Kodiak: Less than two weeks until Signal. On May 26, Dr. Marco Pavone joins us at Kodiak’s Mountain View HQ for a conversation on Physical AI, autonomous driving, and what it takes to build AI systems that can reason and act in the physical world (link).
‘July 16th 2026, AUTONOMOUS is coming to San Francisco. We won’t be coming alone’ (link).
I’ll also be in San Francisco next week for a big podcast interview…any guesses? 🙃
AVs/Humans behaving badly
Empty Waymos invade Atlanta neighborhood, circle cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers (link).
Related: ‘Waymo in the Neighborhood’ (link).
A stuck Waymo has been blocking my alley for hours (link).
‘Waymo vs cone in Atlanta’ (link).
‘Waymo attacked in the UK’ (link).
‘All [Two] Waymos came to halt on the expressway’ (link).
‘A delivery robot was “love-struck” after being crashed into by a driver in Philadelphia’ (link).
Neat Jobs
Multiple open roles at Waymo (link) via Suzanne Philion.
Senior Program Manager, Service Operations, AV Fleets at Uber (link) via Dan Sussna.
Senior Manager, Robot Industrial Design at Zoox (link) via Chris Stoffel.
Job Moves
Jon Glassman: Google -> Waymo (link).
Keerthan Shetty: Continental -> Einride (link).
Amy Nicol: Mattermost -> Waabi (link).
Shuchi Anandpura: Zoox (link).
Shout-outs
Big thanks to TDD readers at CSAA Insurance Group, Flytrex, Uber and to Stanley Y 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.
We’re now at 10,000+ subscribers! Interested in advertising with TDD? Check out our media kit here and reach out to us. Newsletter spots are currently sold out until August/September.
Until next week :)
-Harry