This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s California regulatory moat, Cybercab’s pending commercial launch and Uber’s series of supervised launches in Europe and Dubai.
In California, Waymo is completing 1.4 million fully autonomous rides per month, a 10X growth rate over two years. Additionally, the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) granted Waymo commercial driverless expansion authority across 40,000 square miles, covering roughly 25 million California residents and giving Waymo an estimated two-year regulatory moat over competitors.
Waymo also opened service to all riders in Houston, its 10th market, with San Antonio likely to follow, and launched the Zeekr-built Ojai to all riders across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix while introducing its own custom silicon chip to boost compute performance and drive down vehicle costs.
While Waymo continues to scale, Tesla is preparing for a Cybercab commercial launch in Austin following first-responder training sessions with local fire departments. Then there is Uber, which is focused on expanding globally.
In Dubai, Baidu’s Apollo Go went live on the Uber app, allowing riders to explicitly select an autonomous ride or be assigned one when booking Comfort or UberX.
In London, Wayve and Uber launched early trip access using supervised Ford Mach-E vehicles, though debate remains over who will secure the critical Autonomous Passenger Service (APS) permit. Pony AI also touted its growing Uber partnership during earnings, though its planned European expansion faced scrutiny over ODD limitations and safety driver supervision.
In sidewalk delivery, Avride is expanding its autonomous campus delivery fleet to 1,000 bots across 25 universities this fall. Following its split from Uber, Serve Robotics quickly pivoted by cutting deals with DoorDash and Grubhub, expanding into San Jose and Washington, D.C., while promoting its Beacon platform to potentially disintermediate traditional delivery platforms for local restaurants.
Episode Chapters
00:00 Waymo Racks Up the Miles in California
07:02 Airports Matter, In California Permits Matter More
09:50 Waymo Opens Houston to All Riders, San Antonio Likely Next
13:34 Waymo Opens Ojai to All Riders
16:21 Waymo’s Declining Costs
19:28 New York City Does Not Want Robotaxis
21:28 The 100 Car Benchmark
25:05 Pony AI's European Expansion
28:09 Baidu Apollo Go Goes Live in Dubai
30:31 Wayve and Uber Launch Supervised in London. Who Gets the APS Permit?
36:17 Avride Expands Campus Delivery Bots
37:07 Serve Robotics Expands with DoorDash, Grubhub and Beacon
41:27 Next Week
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