A Waymo self-driving car in San Francisco, California (Getty Images)

WE, ROBOT 🤖

Tesla’s robotaxi event is finally here — will it be a watershed moment for autonomous vehicles?

Tesla’s self-driving rival Waymo is already doing 100,000+ paid trips per week

10/9/24 8:32AM

For a decade, Elon Musk has crafted a narrative about the potential of robotaxis — a self-driving, self-funding Optimus Taxius that could transform the economics of Tesla. Now, a grand reveal is finally upon us at the company’s “We, Robot” event, which starts at 7 p.m. ET tomorrow.

Will Musk deliver? For Tesla and its shareholders, the stakes are high. As competition in electric vehicles has intensified, squeezing the company’s margins, and Tesla’s rapid sales growth has slowed, Tesla’s stock has come under pressure. At its peak in November 2021, Tesla was worth more than $1.2 trillion; today it’s closer to $770 billion (though that’s still more than 3x what its next most valuable competitor, Toyota, is worth). Some financial analysts bill robotaxis as the company’s future.

Let’s talk reality

The truth is, robotaxis are already here. In June, Google-backed Waymo opened up its services to the public, and it now counts ~700 vehicles in several cities, which are completing more than 100,000 self-driving rides a week. That progress is off the back of years of testing — Waymo autonomous vehicles racked up ~4.9 million miles in 2023, according to the California DMV, more than any other company that filed reports (Tesla does not report data).

Waymo has plans to expand slowly, with a small number of robotaxis in geofenced environments. Elon Musk described Waymo’s technology as “quite fragile” and not able to scale because it is a “very localized solution.” Amazon’s Zoox has also released plans to launch services in Las Vegas from next year, whilst GM-owned Cruise recently resumed its operations after an accident in 2023.

If Tesla does deliver its iPhone moment, revealing some amazing prototype that could bring robotaxis to the masses, the question will pivot once again to: how do you convince people they are safe? A Forbes legal survey from July revealed that 93% of people have at least some concerns about self-driving cars.

Rani Molla

Two’s a crowd

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Lucid announces Cybercab competitor and self-driving tech subscription in a bid to take on Tesla

Lucid’s vehicle has two seats and no steering wheel... a lot like another vehicle we’ve been hearing a lot about lately.

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Palantir announces slew of defense- and security-themed partnerships

Defense, intelligence, and AI software company Palantir Technologies announced a series of security-themed partnerships Thursday, ahead of its annual conference promoting its artificial intelligence software platform (AIP).

Shares were recently up 1.7%, stretching the stock’s gains over the past month to 19%.

The deals include partnerships with uranium enrichment company Centrus Energy, jet engine maker GE Aerospace, unmanned aerial vehicle maker Ondas, and privately held World View, which sells intelligence and surveillance balloons that operate in the upper atmosphere.

Separately, it also announced a new “sovereign AI OS reference architecture,” a collaboration Palantir says “delivers customers a turnkey AI data center from hardware procurement to application deployment.”

Reference architectures are effectively blueprints that tell organizations how to set up and use AI hardware and software systems.

Known as the Palantir OS Reference Architecture, it’s based on similar AI blueprints Nvidia already sells, and it will enable customers to use Palantir’s entire product set, including the AIP and Foundry, its data organization and management product.

Palantir Unveils Nvidia Software Pact, Defense Partnerships At AI Conference

Reference architectures are effectively blueprints that tell organizations how to set up and use AI hardware and software systems.

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Tesla’s China sales jump as EV market slumps

Tesla’s China sales grew 43% to 38,206 vehicles in February, compared a low baseline a year earlier.

Still, thanks to strong sales of its Model Y, Tesla defied countrywide trends — overall China EV sales fell 35% last month.

As a result, Tesla’s market share in China, its second-biggest market, grew to nearly 14% — its highest level in nearly two years.

Tesla's China sales rebound in Feb as market share hits nearly 2-year high

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Uber, which exited self-driving in 2020, is now at the center of the robotaxi era

Uber, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Wayve and Nissan in Tokyo this year, has deals with every major AV player.

US Lifts Restrictions on Chinese Chip EDA

NOBLE GAS

IMPASSE

Chris Stokel-Walker3/12/26