Are Robotaxis Ready for This Fight?

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🌟 Editor's Note

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This Week’s Big Charge

💡 Robotaxis in NYC? Not Everyone’s Saying Yes.

I like to say that I treat driving a car in Manhattan like going to war: You only do it when you absolutely have to, and you expect bad things to happen when you do. But somehow, New York City has become the next great frontier for autonomous taxis.

I knew this would happen … eventually. After all, Waymo—the driverless ride-hail company owned by Google parent company Alphabet—has been expanding into new cities for years now. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bet the future of his company on breaking up with steering wheels, although its Robotaxi service is miles behind Waymo’s.

And while those two companies score many of the headlines, players like Amazon’s Zoox, May Mobility, Nuro, Motional and Aurora all have designs on driverless transportation in various forms.

This is all to say that with artificial intelligence powering a new era for autonomous cars, your likelihood of encountering one on the roads is now a lot higher than it was even a few years ago.

So why does Waymo’s deployment of autonomous cars in New York feel so different?

🚗 What We Know About Waymo In NYC:

• Last week, New York’s Department of Transportation gave Waymo a license to deploy eight Jaguar I-Pace AVs in specific parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn for testing—with humans in the driver’s seat for state-mandated safety reasons.

• If things go well, that number will grow. The pilot program runs through September, but it could be extended.

• It is largely seen as the first step to deploying Waymo cabs on a permanent basis across New York.

• New York’s embattled mayor, Eric Adams, called it a win. “New York City is proud to welcome Waymo to test this new technology in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as we know this testing is only the first step in moving our city further into the 21st century,” according to TimeOut.

📊 More Context:

• Waymo already operates self-driving taxi fleets in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin.

• I’ve used the service many times; I think the cars are truly the gold standard for modern autonomous driving. But they are far from perfect.

• Waymo has wanted to deploy cars in New York for years. It started mapping the city back in 2021.

• New York is, at the very least, getting a program that’s probably as proven as AVs can be right now. Waymo cars have logged more than 71 million driverless miles as of March, a number that’s surely grown since.

🛻 So, Why Is Everyone Mad About This?:

• New Yorkers? Angry about something? Unprecedented, I know.

• But the reception to Waymo here has been different than perhaps anything the nascent ride-hail titan has dealt with before.

• To quote TimeOut again: “If you’ve ever tried to cross Canal Street at rush hour, you know this city is not for the faint of heart—or the faint of algorithm. The streets teem with jaywalkers, delivery cyclists, honking cabs, double-parked trucks and the occasional parade.”

• Those things make driving miserable, and generally ill-advised. Is a robotaxi really up for that, too?

• The advocacy group Open Plans told Gothamist that New York just isn’t like those other cities. “This is a technology that hasn’t been tested out in incredibly dense cities like New York City.” That group has called for a pause on testing.

• New York has other variables beyond density and more pedestrians and cyclists, including weather.

• All those cities I listed above? They’re pretty consistent in terms of climate. New York gets everything from snow to scorching heat to the occasional tropical storm. Is Waymo up for all that? 

• Plus, there’s the general consensus that the last thing New York needs is more cars, robot-driven or otherwise.

• “The future of transportation is public transit that runs reliably and regularly, and active transportation that's available to everybody. It’s not cars," that Open Plans rep told Gothamist.

• Public officials haven’t shared Adams’ enthusiasm. “If there’s one place on Earth that was NOT meant for self-driving cars, it’s NYC,” former Mayor Bill de Blasio said on X. (I haven’t seen responses from any other current mayoral candidates.)

• Taxi drivers, whose livelihoods have already been rocked by the rise of Uber and Lyft, are especially not thrilled about removing humans from the equation entirely.

• According to public radio station WNYC, at least one NYC council member is calling for stricter regulations for Waymo’s cars.

• The response hasn’t been very positive—or at least, it’s in line with New York’s usual “anti-anything new” vibe, as one friend who’s a longtime city hall observer told me.

🛻 I Don’t Live In New York! Why The Hell Do I Care?

• First of all, great question, and also, congrats; your cost of living is probably cheaper, too.

• But this is a fascinating scenario because it may be the ultimate test for driverless cars anywhere on Earth. Yes, really.

• Traffic, cyclists, pedestrians, bad weather, bad roads, construction, delivery vehicles, generalized chaos—New York has it all, baby.

• Can even the best robotaxi out there really contend with all of that, and be 100% safer than a human driver 100% of the time?

• And there is a labor aspect to this, too: in cities where AVs operate, driver pay goes down, according to a study from Gridwise.

• Ultimately, if Waymo comes to New York—a city with no shortage of cabs or on-demand ride-hail options—who benefits most and how? That’s a question this company has to answer.

⚡️ My Take:

• Waymo’s arrival in New York feels inevitable. And Tesla clearly wants in too, as it’s hiring test drivers despite not having applied for the necessary permits.

• For the record, I, too, do not believe that “more cars” are the answer to New York’s transit problems. Or the transit problems in any city, for that matter.

• But New York will present challenges that Waymo’s other cities simply have not presented before. Driving in Austin is child’s play compared to 15 minutes in Manhattan.

• I’ll end by quoting Frank Sinatra’s take on New York: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

• You can count on that being true now for the AV industry as well.

📰 More Stories That Matter

• Hyundai, which has significantly stepped up its investments in American manufacturing in recent years, will allocate another $8 billion in U.S. steelmaking, auto manufacturing and robots as it navigates tough Trump tariffs. [The Korea Times]

• Speaking of Korea: Sedan sales have dropped off pretty hard in America as buyers flocked to SUVs and trucks. But over there, a good four-door is still big business. [The Korea Times]

• A decade after the diesel cheating scandal, and Volkswagen is consistently outselling Tesla across Europe. [Bloomberg]

• Leapmotor, the Chinese “new energy vehicle” company that’s part-owned by Stellantis, has begun shipping its new B10 crossover to European countries. [CarNewsChina]

• China’s government asked its carmakers to stop their race-to-the-bottom price war that risked destroying the entire industry. Their response? Thanks, but no thanks. [Bloomberg]

🔍 On My Radar

• BYD’s sales have surged ahead of Tesla in Europe for the first time ever. It also has the advantage of making hybrid cars, giving flexibilty to customers.

• Here in America, we’re headed into September—the last month for EV tax credits. What will electric sales look like after this, and which brands will stay ahead or fall behind?

• I’ll be at IAA Munich next Friday. On my radar: EV debuts from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and news from Lucid and more.

• Car dealers in California have filed a lawsuit to stop the direct-sales effort launched by Sony-Honda Afeela, the EV startup that wants to bypass dealerships entirely, Tesla-style. How will that play in court?

• Investments in renewable energy have dropped 36% this year alone on the heels of Trump’s energy and tariff policies. That seems not great!

• Forget even EVs and hybrids for a second. All the cars are too expensive now, so much so that seven-year auto loans are the new normal.

🔌 Charging News

• ChargePoint is working on a remarkable new “micro-grid” setup backed by direct current that could cut charging time and costs for fleet providers. [InsideEVs]

• These days in America, there are now more than 3 million charging sessions at public EV fast charging stations every single week. [Alex Agne/Electric Era via LinkedIn]

• Denver just opened its largest single EV charging hub at Ball Arena, where the Nuggets play, with 60 Level 2 ports available during games and other events. What a great application for this. [9News]

• A plan to build out Alaska’s EV charging network is now back on track after the Trump administration’s NEVI reversal. [Anchorage Daily News]

• Canada’s most iconic coffee shop and donut store, Tim Hortons, will start adding Flo Ultra EV fast-chargers to its locations. [Automotive News]

🤖Autonomy News

• After making a big fuss about it just six months ago, Stellantis will reportedly shelve its Level 3 assistance (hands-free, eyes-off) program, amid high costs and what it perceives to be a lack of consumer demand. [Reuters]

• That’s certainly not what we see from other research firms and competing automakers, who say hands-off driving assistance is increasingly seen as a must-have feature.

• Take Ford: It says that last year, its customers used its BlueCruise hands-off system nearly 50% of the time when driving longer than one hour.

• The Boring Company is finally testing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system in those Las Vegas tunnels. I rode in one of those at CES this year, and didn’t exactly come away dazzled. [TechCrunch.]

• But Tesla’s Robotaxi service is quickly expanding into other parts of Austin, including pretty far north of downtown. [Austin American-Statesman]

• Still, most Americans say they wouldn’t ever try riding in a fully autonomous taxi, according to a new study. [Sherwood]

• But Waymo and Tesla have radically different approaches to growing their operations: Waymo has been mostly slow and steady, depending on Lidar and careful mapping of cities, while Tesla wants to expand rapidly with only cameras and AI. [Reuters]

🧠 AI News

• Just how could generative AI be used to enhance your in-car experience? McKinsey has a few examples, from voice assistants to better range estimates and predictive maintenance. [McKinsey]

• Honda and California-based Helm.ai have signed a partnership to collaborate on AI-powered Level 3 hands-off driving. Honda hopes to deploy this after 2027. [Automotive Dive]

• Nvidia is still the dominant power player for full-stack autonomous driving solutions, including AI software, hardware and more. That won’t change anytime soon. [AI Invest]

• But there’s also the challenge of training drivers to use this tech properly: “The growing adoption of AI vehicle technologies has exposed usability problems. Driver recognition and authentication technologies like biometrics and driver monitoring (i.e., vehicle connectivity) have the highest number of issues.” [J.D. Power via Car Dealership Guy]

📤️ Spread the Charge

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❓️ How’s My Driving?

This is a work in progress, so all feedback is welcome. Send me your thoughts anytime.

💡 Did You Know? Autonomous cars have been in development for a lot longer than you may think. The U.S. Defense Department’s DARPA supported Carnegie Mellon University’s Navigation Laboratory, or Navlab, for many such projects. One sensor-packed minivan, Navlab 5, steered itself (with researchers handling the brakes and throttle) from Pittsburgh all the way to San Diego in 1995.

Until next time,

—Patrick George