The launch of Tesla’s (TSLA) robotaxi marks one of the most consequential in the company’s history – if only, because Elon Musk has hailed this as the future for nearly a decade. For eight years, Musk has teased the vision of a shared fleet of fully-autonomous Teslas, with the promise of that technology contributing significantly to the company’s valuation.
The long-anticipated launch comes amid increased scrutiny about the promise of self-driving technology. While Google’s Waymo has logged more than 22 million rider miles with few incidents in select cities, accidents involving GM’s Cruise and Tesla’s autopilot technology have raised questions about the technology’s ability to scale safely.
Amazon’s Zoox is providing a potential template for the future, building vehicles for the sole purpose of ferrying passengers autonomously, without the traditional controls like a steering wheel and pedals. The company says that their new technology will ensure cost efficiency and safety.
Founder Jesse Levinson said that Zoox’s robotaxi is fundamentally different from Tesla’s driver assistance system, as Tesla vehicles require drivers to be ready to take control at any moment.
While Zoox doesn’t rely on human drivers for assistance, the company does use remote operators to guide the vehicle in rare situations.
“The vehicles are only getting help from humans only 1% of the time,” Levinson said. “As it gets more sophisticated, the amount of time they’re asking for help goes down.”
Still, critics question the economics and safety of self-driving taxis, noting that current autonomous rides are more expensive than car ownership, despite being cheaper than traditional rides.
While Tesla investors are optimistic about robotaxis, experts believe substantial revenue is still years away.
In terms of the the value of the company autonomy is just such a mind blowing thing.
The launch of Tesla’s Robo taxi marks one of the most consequential in the company’s history.
Ceo Elon Musk has hailed vehicle autonomy as Tesla’s future, saying the technology would boost the company’s value at least 10 fold.
But Google’s Waymo is in the driver seat already operating autonomous taxi services in major cities.
There’s no steering wheel, no, none of the car stuff.
Now, Amazon’s looking to make its mark with a new kind of driverless vehicle but skeptics question the economics and safety of self driving taxis.
Here’s a look at the future of Robotaxis.
I mean, I think, I mean, I really would consider autonomous driving to be basically a solved problem.
Musk has been promising Robo taxis for nearly a decade now.
I feel very confident predicting autonomous Robo taxis for Tesla next year.
It’s a vision he’s described as part Uber part Airbnb fully autonomous cars allowing Tesla drivers to share their vehicles on an app tapping into a wider network to cash in.
The problem is the technology at the center of those ambitions hasn’t materialized instead Tesla’s faced a number of lawsuits questioning the safety of its self driving software which still requires a licensed driver behind the wheel.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has launched an investigation tying 29 fatal crashes to the company’s technology.
I think the reality is the concept of a 100% safe autonomous vehicle that never has an accident with another car, never hits a pedestrian or a cyclist of some kind is probably not realistic in the same way.
We wouldn’t expect humans to be kind of that safe as well.
We has proven it can operate safely so far.
Weo has taken the lead in Tesla’s absence with their own autonomous vehicles.
Today, the company operates 100,000 paid rides per week with taxi services in a handful of cities including L A, San Francisco and Phoenix.
The company has taken a different approach than Tesla using a combination of light, our sensors, cameras and radar to drive on roads that have been mapped digitally.
That means a human driver takes the wheel first to collect data on these routes before deploying the autonomous car.
Waymo says that process has led to a 73% reduction in injury related crashes compared to human drivers.
You can do the honors.
Oh, so I start the ride.
Yeah, you start the ride whenever you’re ready.
Oh, this is pretty smooth.
Their vehicle has no steering wheel and no pedals.
It’s bidirectional, which means it can drive both ways, unlike Waymo, which retrofits cars intended for human drivers.
Zuke builds vehicles solely for autonomous use.
We’re able to have two or in some cases four of almost every important critical component in the vehicle.
So that means we have two braking systems, we have two steering racks, two batteries, two motors, we actually have four sensor pods, one in each corner.
And what’s really cool about our vehicle is if any one of those components has a hardware or software failure, not only is it still safe, but we can actually keep driving and take the customer to their destination.
Just like if there’s a component failure on an airplane, you still take the, you still land the plane and that makes it much more reliable and safe experience.
Levinson says that’s fundamentally different from the driver assistance system.
Tesla uses now while the vehicle can accelerate and steer on its own, it requires drivers to be prepared to retake control at any time.
It might sound like that’s a small difference, but it’s actually a giant difference because it means that no matter what’s happening in your environment and it means no matter what’s going wrong with your sensors or if they’re covered up or if they’re occluded or even if they fail, you still have to be able to keep driving safely and you know, and passenger cars today, they’re just not designed that way.
And so it’s really a very different hardware and software product entirely but fully autonomous doesn’t mean fail proof.
Zuk still relies on human operators to guide the vehicle remotely in rare situations like unfamiliar construction zones.
Gm’s crews and its remote operators failed to prevent an accident that dragged a pedestrian 20 ft in San Francisco.
The vehicles are only help from humans about 1% of the time as the A I gets more and more sophisticated, that percent of the time that it’s asking for help goes down and down and down and down.
Now, we don’t think it’s necessarily ever going to get to truly zero, but it doesn’t have to get to zero.
It just has to get to something very small costs also have to come down for Robotaxis to be profitable.
Chris Robinson with Lux research says autonomous taxi rides today cost roughly half that of traditional ride shares when measured per mile, but it still costs 2 to 3 times more than car ownership less.
So thinking about vehicle costs and more so thinking about uh all of the, you know, the insurance costs to insure the vehicle, uh cleaning maintenance of the vehicle.
Those are the sorts of things that I think are the biggest question marks and the biggest opportunities for reducing costs in the future.
Tesla Bull Ark invest expects Robotaxis to count for nearly 90% of the cost value and earnings by the end of this decade.
But JP Morgan argues material revenue generation isn’t expected for years.
Levinson doesn’t expect Robotaxis to replace car ownership but says Zos is paving the path for the future.
I think in the long term, more and more companies will converge on something kind of like this, right?
Where you really imagine the experience without needing all the legacy of a car.
