Can Robotaxis Take Over New York?

Hey, robotaxis, we’re walking here! We’re walking here!!

Last week, Tesla took steps to bring its autonomous vehicles (AV) to the streets in New York City, following in the footsteps of Waymo, which began the process of bringing its services to the Big Apple earlier this summer. It’s just the latest move in the stop-and-go, uneven rollout of robotaxis nationwide.

On the Road

If you live in one of five US cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta — Waymo’s robotaxis may already feel like a regular part of the traffic bloodstream. The Alphabet-owned company recently claimed it’s providing 250,000 paid rides per week across the markets, way up from just a year ago. Increasingly, the company has competition: Waymo vehicles have been racing against Tesla’s robotaxi service for business in Austin since June, while Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi business hit the Las Vegas Strip last month after the company scored a crucial exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Next up: conquering New York gridlock, where some 200,000 for-hire vehicles licensed by the city complete approximately 1 million trips per day, according to city data. Waymo applied for a city license in June and began a pilot testing program last month. Tesla, meanwhile, is taking a “move fast and break rules” approach familiar to its founder. Last week, the EV titan posted job listings for AV test drivers, even though the state’s Department of Transportation told Gizmodo that the company had not received permits to test AVs in the city.

The push into New York comes as other auto industry players expand their AV ambitions:

• Last week, Bloomberg reported that GM is seeking to lure back employees who had worked on its now-defunct self-driving Cruise unit, as the auto giant revives its AV project. Sources told Bloomberg the company is focusing on self-driving cars for consumers rather than robotaxis.
• In July, Uber announced a $300 million investment in EV firm Lucid, as well as an undisclosed investment in AV tech firm Nuro, with plans to bring 20,000 Lucid robotaxis equipped with Nuro tech to the roads in the next six years. Waymo offers its services through Uber’s app in Austin and Atlanta; in May, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that Waymo AVs complete more rides per day than 99% of Uber drivers in Austin.

Fare is Fair: Still, the massive capital needed for research, development and production means “the autonomous space in the US will remain largely unprofitable until scale increases and vehicle costs materially decline,” JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth recently told the Financial Times. The story has been different in China, according to a Rest of World feature published last week, which said that AV players are enjoying the fruits of government spending and a top-down regulatory approach, compared to municipal control in the US. By 2030, the China Society of Automotive Engineers estimates that as many as 20% of cars sold in the country will be fully driverless.