Supervised Robotaxis Are Having a Moment. Unsupervised Robotaxis Are Having a Decade.

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Waymo’s California regulatory moat, Cybercab’s pending commercial launch and Uber’s string of supervised launches in the UK and Europe.

In California, Waymo is completing 1.4 million fully autonomous rides per month, a 10X growth rate over two years. Additionally, the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) granted Waymo commercial driverless expansion authority across 40,000 square miles, covering roughly 25 million California residents and giving Waymo an estimated two-year regulatory moat over competitors.

Waymo also opened service to all riders in Houston, its 10th market, with San Antonio likely to follow, and launched the Zeekr-built Ojai to all riders across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix while introducing its own custom silicon chip to boost compute performance and drive down vehicle costs.

While Waymo continues to scale, Tesla is preparing for a Cybercab commercial launch in Austin following first-responder training sessions with local fire departments. Then there is Uber, which is focused on expanding globally.

In Dubai, Baidu’s Apollo Go went live on the Uber app, allowing riders to explicitly select an autonomous ride or be assigned one when booking Comfort or UberX.

In London, Wayve and Uber launched early trip access using supervised Ford Mach-E vehicles, though debate remains over who will secure the critical Autonomous Passenger Service (APS) permit. Pony AI also touted its growing Uber partnership during earnings, though its planned European expansion faced scrutiny over ODD limitations and safety driver supervision.

In sidewalk delivery, Avride is expanding its autonomous campus delivery fleet to 1,000 bots across 25 universities this fall. Following its split from Uber, Serve Robotics quickly pivoted by cutting deals with DoorDash and Grubhub, expanding into San Jose and Washington, D.C., while promoting its Beacon platform to potentially disintermediate traditional delivery platforms for local restaurants.

Episode Chapters

• 00:00 Waymo Racks Up the Miles in California
• 07:02 Airports Matter, In California Permits Matter More
• 09:50 Waymo Opens Houston to All Riders, San Antonio Likely Next
• 13:34 Waymo Opens Ojai to All Riders
• 16:21 Waymo’s Declining Costs
• 19:28 New York City Does Not Want Robotaxis
• 21:28 The 100 Car Benchmark
• 25:05 Pony AI’s European Expansion
• 28:09 Baidu Apollo Go Goes Live in Dubai
• 30:31 Wayve and Uber Launch Supervised in London. Who Gets the APS Permit?
• 36:17 Avride Expands Campus Delivery Bots
• 37:07 Serve Robotics Expands with DoorDash, Grubhub and Beacon
• 41:27 Next Week