Uber in talks to help acquire Pony.ai
Plus, Waymo Teen to launch this summer
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Now, Here’s What’s Happening.
Uber is in talks with its ousted founder, Travis Kalanick, to help fund his acquisition of Pony.ai's U.S. subsidiary.
According to the New York Times, which spoke to two people with knowledge of the matter, Uber's deal with Kalanick could fund his acquisition of Pony.ai's U.S. subsidiary. While the talks are preliminary, if the deal proceeds, Kalanick will run Pony's U.S. subsidiary. It is currently unclear whether Uber would receive a stake in Pony as a result of the deal.
Since being forced out of Uber in a boardroom coup eight years ago, Kalanick has been working on his startup CloudKitchens, a virtual restaurant company, which he would continue running after the Pony acquisition.
Uber could be feeling pressure to restart in-house AV efforts. While Uber currently works with Waymo in two cities, allowing Waymo vehicles to be hailed via its app, Waymo continues to gain momentum in other cities across the U.S. with its own ride-hailing service. Waymo has already overtaken Lyft's market share in San Francisco and is well on its way to doing so in other major metropolitan areas. Tesla's burgeoning robotaxi business also poses a threat, as the company has refused to make its robotaxis available on Uber's platform.
Kalanick's interest in Pony.ai may also be opportunistic, as a law banning autonomous vehicle software used in the United States from being operated by any Chinese entity is set to take effect by March 2026. Pony forked its self-driving code back in 2022 to develop new U.S.-based versions, preparing the company's U.S. subsidiary for a possible sale or spinoff.
Uber's previous in-house self-driving efforts were canceled after one of its AVs struck and killed a pedestrian while operating in autonomous mode with a safety driver.
Waymo will launch Waymo Teen in Phoenix this summer.
According to an interview with Time magazine, the company hopes the feature will reduce driving accidents, which are a leading cause of death for teens aged 14 through 17. It would also free parents from having to shuttle their children around.
In San Francisco, parents have already been sending their children to school alone in Waymo vehicles. However, under the current terms of service, this is not technically allowed. The upcoming addition to the service could include features that make the process of sending children off in a Waymo vehicle easier and give parents greater control over their children's Waymo usage.
Honda-backed Helm.ai has unveiled a vision based system for advanced driver assistance in cars.
The company also said it was in talks with other automakers to integrate its technology into their vehicles. Notably, Helm.ai is working with Honda to integrate a hands-free, eyes-off version of its system into the upcoming 2026 Honda Zero series of EVs.
While this could be major competition for Tesla's FSD ADAS, Helm.ai also stressed that its foundation models work with other sensors, though its primary offering remains camera-based.
Pony.ai and Ford executives dismiss Tesla's robotaxi launch as "immature," lacking L4 readiness
In a candid interview, Pony.ai's co-founder and CTO Lou Tiancheng claimed that "Tesla hasn't yet taken a seat at the L4 poker table." Lou, who was previously at Google's self-driving car project before it spun out into Waymo, believes that L2 advanced driver assistance technology differs fundamentally from L4 technology. "The better L2 is, the further away it is from L4," he said in the same interview. He also asserted that only three companies globally currently meet the L4 operational standard: Waymo, Apollo Go, and Pony.ai. He added that Waymo had explored and abandoned L2 technology around 2013-2014 because users often mistook L2 systems for fully autonomous L4 systems.
Lou is not the only executive to dismiss Tesla's robotaxis. At the Aspen Ideas Festival last Friday, Ford CEO Jim Farley said that lidar was mission critical:
"When you have a brand like Ford, when there's a new technology, you have to be really careful. We really believe that lidar is mission critical. [...] To us, Waymo has made a lot of progress. [...] Where the camera will be completely blinded, the lidar system will see exactly what's in front of you."
He also acknowledged that he has had conversations with Elon Musk but considered lidar to be an important part of Ford's eventual autonomy system.
In Other News…
Kodak is using Vay’s remote driving tech in its self-driving trucks
Tesla Model Y autonomously delivers itself from factory to customer
Also: Tesla hit by train after extreme self-driving mode error
Alright, that’s it from me… until next week!