Motional Goes Driver-Out, Waymo Meets Elephant
Plus: Limited Ride AI ticket release for Valentines Day! ‘Cause we love our readers ❤️
Welcome to the Ride AI newsletter: your weekly digest of news and intelligence at the intersection of technology and transportation.
And our next speaker is…
Prior to shipping the world’s first personal Robocar, Jewel was at IBM, where she was a member of the Watson Core Algorithm team delivering core AI that powered Watson’s DeepQA systems. She has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, and I was told, is one of the main designers of the Tensor vehicle.
Speaking of the Tensor Robocar, I’m so excited to announce that it’ll be on display at SFJAZZ!
Do not miss your chance to be one of the first people on earth to experience the world’s first level 4 autonomous agentic cars, built for private ownership.
For Newsletter Readers: A Limited Number of Tickets Now Available
It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and because we love our readers, we’re releasing an extremely limited number of heavily discounted tickets. Just for you, dear reader.
Limited tickets sold out? No worries, there’s always the waitlist:
Now, Here’s What You Need To Know Today.
I’m trying a little bit of a different format this week. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Motional has announced that the company has started driverless testing in Las Vegas with the safety driver now moved to the front passenger seat for monitoring. Long time watchers of the AV industry might remember that Motional had previously offered rides on Lyft’s network back in 2022, but with a safety driver. The company ended up ending the supervised service after some time in order to retool with the advent of end-to-end AI. Now, the company is gearing up to start public facing autonomous service once again, with employees already able to take autonomous rides with a safety driver.
I recently took a test ride (with a safety driver) during CES in Las Vegas. A video of that experience will be out soon.
Update: Motional has clarified to me since publication that the safety driver is now in the front passenger seat. This piece has been updated to reflect this clarification.
Waymo produced a flurry of announcements this past week.
The company unveiled its new World Model, a way to simulate daily as well as highly improbable driving scenarios for its vehicles. What happens when the Waymo Driver encounters an elephant? How about a tornado? How about driving on a snow-covered Golden Gate Bridge? Now we know. Make sure to head over to the linked post above to play with the point cloud viewers.
The company has also officially announced Boston and Sacramento for upcoming deployments, and confirmed that its Nashville deployment is now driverless, with vehicle hailing via Lyft.
Speaking of Waymo, you might remember Bedrock Robotics, a company founded by ex-Waymo engineers, that builds autonomous construction equipment. Bedrock Robotics has just raised a new $270 million round, led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s venture arm. This puts the startup’s valuation at $1.75 billion.
In sensor news, lidar maker Ouster announced on Monday that it has acquired StereoLabs, a company that builds high precision camera-based sensors for use in robotics, and the software to make use of them, for $93 million in cash and stock. Ouster CEO Angus Pacala said that the acquisition was “a natural fit for Ouster’s next stage of growth.”
It seems to be a smart hedge to bring all modes of sensing under one roof. Significant advancements are being made in all sensing fields after all, across camera, radar, or lidar. With this acquisition, Ouster is able to cover more sensing bases and not lose customers who might be looking to use cameras over lidar.
The Chinese robotaxi train is not stopping anytime soon.
Pony.ai is partnering up with Toyota to produce more than 1,000 robotaxis based on the Toyota bZ4X in 2026. These AVs are earmarked for deployment in China’s tier one cities, which are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. The vehicles are jointly developed by Pony.ai, Toyota Motor China, and GAC Toyota. Production is to be carried out by Pony.ai and GAC Toyota.
WeRide has announced (again) that it is partnering up with Uber to deploy 1,200 robotaxis in the Middle East, specifically in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Riyadh. While the deployment is expected to complete by 2027, it is contingent on several milestones, including regulatory hurdles and performance requirements. WeRide and Uber are expected to continue deploying more robotaxis in 15 cities well into 2030 to satisfy a previous agreement.
Beleaguered Vietnamese automaker Vinfast is betting on camera-based self-driving tech to save its unfortunate US debut. The company is pairing up with AutoBrains, an Israeli self-driving technology company, to build a Level 4 self-driving stack on top of its existing Level 2 ADAS features. Vinfast and AutoBrains hopes to build this system faster and at a lower cost than any similar system presently available, and apparently already has test vehicles roaming around controlled environments in Vietnam. It remains to be seen when this system will ship in production cars. No definite timeline or even timeframe was provided by either company.
Alright, that’s it from me… until next week. If you enjoy this newsletter, share it with your friend, colleague, or boss. Thank you for reading; Sophia out!
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