#robotaxis

#robotaxis

The rapid succession of robotaxi deployments from companies like Waymo and Zoox have people in the industry, once again, dreaming about how autonomous vehicles might change our daily lives. That includes driverless taxi rides, sure, but also headier ideas like sending an autonomous vehicle to fetch groceries or pick up dry cleaning. If those things are ultimately going to happen, navigating the handoff moments - like where exactly a vehicle should stop to receive the groceries - will be a crucial piece of the puzzle.

I think there will be fun things that people are going to be doing in the cars that are not just driving. It's making drinks, it's telling stories, it's being the local guy,

When asked backstage what Waymo is doing to change the perception of its vehicles, Mawakana pointed to the company's push to put local artists' designs on some cars as part of a broader effort to "make the fleet more a part of the community." But while Waymo often pushes back on surveillance requests, she said the company has to "continue to work with first responders to help us address this challenge" of vandalism.

The transportation scene is about to be transformed in profound ways over the coming decade, as artificial intelligence (AI) and energy storage tech advance. Undoubtedly, robotaxis have been hogging the headlines of late, with new autonomous ride-hailing solutions rolling out in new markets. Whether we're talking about Alphabet ( NASDAQ:GOOG) Waymo or the Tesla ( NASDAQ:TSLA) Cybercab, there's a lot to look forward to as the dream of self-driving vehicles looks to drive into the mainstream.

In July, Lucid, Uber, and Nuro announced a massive robotaxi deal that would see the deployment of 20,000 autonomous vehicles in the US over the next six years. But every journey begins with a single step, and today Lucid announced the delivery of the first Gravity SUV to Nuro for retrofitting. The vehicle was built at Lucid's factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and then transported to the automaker's headquarters in Newark, California. There, a team from Nuro installed the sensors and other hardware for autonomous driving.

What we've learned is that this is not a race so much as a long, curved, and fragmented road - one that looks more like the fan of an alluvial plain than a racetrack - to develop and prove the technology works a nd make it a profitable business. It's not a race against others as much as an internal contest with existential stakes.