How Uber and Lyft are gearing up for the robotaxi revolution
Waymo Debuts New Vehicles at CES, Uber CEO resigns from Aurora board, and Nvidia CEO on Tesla’s approach to self-driving
Top Stories of the Week
Waymo showcases Hyundai IONIQ 5 and Zeekr RT at CES with 6th Generation Waymo Driver (link). My first impression of the Zeekr vehicle was that it looks expensive! Definitely a neat car but I noticed lots of customization, additional features, and technology. I’m also not sure the bigger form factor makes a lot of sense since we know US ridehail customers do not like to share rides and that more than 90% of all trips are single or double occupancy.
The Hyundai is a better fit for Waymo since the MSRP is $30,000 lower than the Jaguar I Pace and it’s a well liked/received car from a trustworthy brand. Waymo’s driver product is great but the focus needs to shift towards reducing the costs of the tech stack. I don’t see how the Zeekr does that but I’m open to hearing some good arguments.
How Uber and Lyft are gearing up for the robotaxi revolution (link, no paywall). Waymo gets two main benefits from partnering with Uber and Lyft: the highest possible utilization and the ability to offload operations and logistics. The latter is more obvious but I think the former is really where Waymo can benefit the most.
Waymo can and should also negotiate a killer deal with Uber where they ask for things like priority requests (at airports, shorter ETAs, etc), premium levels of service (ie closer to Uber Black than UberX pricing), only the highest rated passengers, etc. The density on Uber’s network is so high that Waymo can effectively cherry pick the best rides and leave the scraps for everyone else.
What Robotaxis Brought San Francisco (link, no paywall). Insightful interview of Jeffrey Tumlin (Ex San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Chief) by David Zipper. Jeffrey expresses a cautious and critical stance on robotaxis in San Francisco. He sees some perks, like convenience for people who can afford them, but he doesn’t think they’re benefiting the city’s transportation system overall. What do you think?
I agree with him on the incompatibility with public transportation but it’s clear to me from the data and my eyeballs that Waymos are safer than most drivers (especially Uber). And how many people have shared videos of their SF Waymo experience? How many tourists have gone out of their way to hop in a Waymo and film/tell all their friends about it. I’d argue that Waymo has been a shining light when it comes to the reputation of SF relative to the typical videos shared on social media about the conditions in the city.
Waymo’s new Safety Hub data from its first 33M miles reveals some impressive stats (link).
Cool Rides
Watch Waymo avoid a child dashing into traffic (link). Waymo should be releasing a video like this every single week.
This sight is familiar to San Franciscans, but it was my first time with Waymo's self driving taxi (link).
The future is here! 😍 My amazing experience riding in an autonomous (driverless) car in Los Angeles! (link).
Waymo POV: the Palisades brush fire (link).
AVs or Humans behaving badly
Self-driving Tesla steers tech founder onto train tracks in Santa Monica (link). Stuff like this happens to me all the time when using FSD (Full Self Driving). It’s a great product for long drives but nowhere near ready for city driving imo.
This is how the AI apocalypse will start. Five Waymos stuck in an intersection behind an accident (link).
lil d#mb a$$ Waymo holding up transit this morning got me thinking about how stu*id even self driving buses would be (link).
Los Angeles man trapped in circling Waymo on way to Phoenix airport says he missed his flight home (link).
Ever since Waymo opened up access, the cars have been getting absolutely trashed (link). A very striking example is in this case where the entire middle compartment of one was ripped off 😞 You would be shocked at the things passengers will do when there’s a human driver in the car - so it’s not surprising that folks are starting to trash Waymos considering there’s no babysitter. And it’s only going to get worse.
I’m not sure there’s a great solution for Waymo other than adding more cameras, and banning riders who misbehave. But these types of disputes are costly to adjudicate - most gig companies use a baseline ‘complaint/error rate’ which is why if you complain that your food delivery order never arrived, they will automatically credit you. Do it too much and you’ll eventually raise a red flag and be banned. But in the meantime, you can accrue hundreds of dollars of refunds. Just another ‘hidden cost’ and reason for Waymo to partner with Uber/Lyft to handle these types of disputes.
Other Stuff
My next long form blog post will answer this question (so make sure you are subscribed!). But the short answer is that Waymo has a great and consistent product, but huge questions around getting to profitability. The big reason for this is they can't build to peak demand while maintaining high utilization like Uber can.
Uber has a huge advantage since they have variable supply. Whenever it’s busy, they can increase prices and get more drivers on the road without having to pay for any of the costs once they go off-line. I tweeted last week that I think Uber is an all time buy right now and I stand by it.
Robbery suspect caught while trying to escape in a Waymo, when it pulls over after detecting sirens (link). Saw one of the news outlets describe him as a “high-tech low-intelligence thief” 😆. I wonder if he expected Waymo to just drive him off into the sunset.
Why Lyft is a Prime candidate for acquisition as Amazon pursues its robotaxi goals (link).
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi resigns from self-driving truck startup Aurora’s board (link).
US opens another Tesla probe, latest focused on tech that remotely returns car to driver (link)
Waymo explains how its driverless taxis handle car thefts after incident in downtown LA (link).
I turned Waymo music into a Spotify playlist (link).
CES 2025 Recap
Zeekr to start deliveries of customized Zeekr Mix to Waymo for robotaxi deployment in 2025 (link).
May Mobility unveils high-capacity electric autonomous vehicle with Tecnobus (link).
Riding in a Zoox robotaxi at CES 2025: Everything that went right and wrong (link).
Vay is expanding its remotely driven rental fleet to over 100 cars in 2025 (link).
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tesla’s approach to self-driving (link).
Waymo’s Ioniq 5 vs Zeekr sensors: for some reason, the Ioniq 5 doesn’t have the mini camera wipers. Imagine the savings 🤑 (link).
Until next week.
-Harry
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