Autonomous Robotaxis: The Good, The Bad, And The Better … And Texas
The Estonian firm Clevon is planning a full-sized, ride sharing robotaxi to follow up on its autonomous cargo delivery EV, now undergoing trials in Texas and elsewhere.
The Estonian firm Clevon is planning a full-sized, ride sharing robotaxi to follow up on its autonomous cargo delivery EV, now undergoing trials in Texas and elsewhere.
Waymo has been leading the way on robotaxis in the US. However, it hasn’t exactly been using the cutting edge in electric vehicle technology. It has relied on relatively old Chrysler Pacific plugin hybrids and, more recently, Jaguar I-PACE electric SUVs. Until now. Oh, well, it still relies on those, … [continued]
I recently wrote an article about 10 existing and planned robotaxi services. One of those was the Apollo Go Robotaxi service launched by Baidu in Changsha, China, on Earth Day, April 20. It turns out that robotaxi service was also launched in Cangzhou, China, in August, and now it’s just been launched in Beijing.
The promise of autonomous vehicles that drive humans safely and reliably in every condition and place in the world is an inspiration for humankind, and if realized will open the door to unprecedented productivity gains and not-seen-before profits.
There is a long-standing argument about whether Tesla is a car company or a tech company. This argument is typically made in the context of how Wall Street should value the company. If Tesla is just a new kind of carmaker, it should be valued at something significantly less than its annual revenue — maybe 25% to 50%, like Ford and GM. Alternatively, if Tesla is a tech company, then it could be valued significantly higher. Google, for example, is trading at about 6 times its revenues today, Facebook at 8, Microsoft at 9, and Salesforce at 10 times. Tesla trades at around 3 times its revenues with some profits, while Uber and Lyft trade around 4 times revenues and have never been profitable.
Tesla opened up about its progress on its fully autonomous driving solution, dubbed Full Self Driving, on its Q3 2019 earnings call today. CEO Elon Musk tentatively said that, “it still does appear that we will still be in Early Access release of Full Self Driving by the end of this year.”
As self-driving cars move closer and closer to reality, one particular market stands to benefit — autonomous taxis (aka robotaxis). Tasha Keeny from Ark Invest recently evaluated the players who’d likely benefit from this massive market opportunity. Keeney writes, “Autonomous vehicles will transform personal mobility … reap[ing] the benefits of a new market which promises to ramp from essentially $0 now to $10 trillion in global gross annual revenues by 2030.”
The world is changing. It always is, but the change is particularly dramatic right now in certain technology sectors. To a normal person’s eyes, changes in the auto industry may seem only incremental. Cars are getting a bit more “connected,” more people are using 21st century taxis from Uber and Lyft (please don’t call this ridesharing), and some people are driving electric cars. But we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Tesla has been leading its customers through a merry little dance lately, shuffling its vehicle lineup around and raising and lowering prices. Buried among all the recent repricings is an announcement that has attracted little attention, but that offers a clue to Tesla’s future plans to deploy an automated ride-sharing network.
The self-driving vehicle systems developer nuTonomy has resumed its testing of vehicles on public roads in Boston (Massachusetts). This follows a short pause that resulted from the pedestrian fatality in Arizona caused by an Uber test vehicle, the company’s CEO has revealed.