Tesla Launches Robotaxi Service
Plus, Waymo launches fully in Atlanta, eyes New York launch
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Now, Here’s What’s Happening.
Tesla launched its invite-only robotaxi service this past Sunday in Austin.
Here are the facts:
There are “10-20” vehicles operating as part of the service as of launch day.
The service runs from 6AM to 12AM daily, excepting bad weather, highways, airports, and any complex intersections.
A safety operator is stationed in the front passenger seat of each car.
The operator manually verifies each passenger by asking to see the passenger’s app
The operator has access to an additional emergency “Stop In Lane” button that passengers do not have access to.
The operator may have access to an emergency stop button on the door handle, which they keep their hand on at all times.
The vehicle can be remotely driven to a degree, as evidenced by steering wheels seen in pictures from the control room.
It costs a flat fee of $4.20 per ride, with a joke tip option
When pressed, the tip option will display a stylized image of a porcupine saying “Just Kidding”
The service area is roughly half the size of Waymo’s Austin service area.
The service is invite-only, with only a few pro-Tesla bloggers and influencers having been invited so far.
Rider preferences sync through the rider’s Tesla account, automatically signing in to streaming music and podcast services.
Tesla’s robotaxi rollout hasn’t been free of issue, however. Within the first few hours of launch, a trajectory planning mishap had one car driving on the wrong side of the road, which caused it to get honked at. In the same trip, the supervisor reached for and almost pressed the e-stop button on the front display when a human driver also drove into the wrong lane.
Riders have also reported difficulty actually finding the vehicle after it arrives to pick them up, with some calling it “robotaxi hunting” in reference to Pokemon hunting.
The NHTSA has already contacted Tesla after reviewing videos online of the taxi traveling in the wrong lane and speeding. The NHTSA is also reviewing the company’s responses to the agency’s questions regarding Tesla’s robotaxi performance in situations such as poor weather and other issues. Tesla has requested the NHTSA keep the company’s responses to the questions confidential.
Ahead of the launch, a group of seven Texas lawmakers formally requested that Tesla delay the robotaxi launch until new regulations were finished being implemented. The launch had previously been delayed from the June 12th internal launch date. It is also not free of safety operators like Elon Musk had previously promised.
The Tesla robotaxi team has pulled off a great achievement. But while it is exciting to see Waymo finally get some competition, the metric for success is the Tesla team’s ability to scale safely. The milestones to watch will be when they get rid of the safety operator, when they let the general public ride, and when the geofence expands to busier areas. I’m excited to see how this goes!
Zoox is gearing up to produce 10,000 robotaxis anually at its new East Bay factory.
The company says that moving forward, the new facility will be used to assemble its purpose-built robotaxis. The original Fremont assembly facility is now fully committed to retrofitting mapping vehicles and sensor pod configuration.
This is the first time we’re getting a look at the possible unit economics of Zoox. I have no further insight into Zoox’s hardware plans than what their journal states, but having founded a hardware startup a few years ago, I do have some insight into supply chain economics.
My best guess for the facility to not lose money for Zoox, given their stated maximum capacity of 10,000 units, would be for them to produce ~5K robotaxis per year optimistically. If this is indeed the case, then they seem to be confident that they will get a significant number of robotaxis certified and into public service this year. If they are delayed, however, they stand to lose a significant amount of money on the factory through soft costs and opportunity costs. From the pictures it does seem like the factory is set up in such a way that it can be retooled and production areas repurposed fairly easily, so it could be the case that they’re ready if production doesn’t go as planned.
Waymo, eyeing a New York launch, calls out state laws banning fully autonomous vehicles.
The law stipulates that it is illegal to operate a car without a person at the wheel. Nonetheless, the company has applied for a permit with the New York Department of Transportation to operate its autonomous vehicles with a safety driver. Waymo had previously deployed vehicles in New York in 2021 for data collection and weather testing. The company also launched to the general public today in Atlanta on Uber, and announced service area expansions in California for San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles. The service expansion doubles the company’s previous service areas.
Volkswagen’s MOIA has presented its series production ID. Buzz AV featuring Mobileye technology.
The company says that the vehicle is part of its MOIA Turnkey Solution, which combines the autonomous ID. Buzz, the company’s AD MaaS Platform, and Operator Enablement into one solution for mobility providers.
MOIA currently operates a closed beta of its service in Hamburg, Germany, which it will open to the public next month.
In Other News…
Alright, that’s it from me… until next week!
Great summary of the weeks news!