The robotaxi fleet race heats up with Tesla, Waymo, Zoox, Uber, Lyft, and BYD in the mix

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) was originally scheduled to be at the center of the autonomous driving universe today with a major robotaxi event. CEO Elon Musk first announced the robotaxi event for August 8 last April, but later pushed the timing back to October 10.

Tesla (TSLA) has been talking about a robotaxi concept since 2016, but the event itself is supposed to give a clear indication of the shape and form of the autonomous vehicle business. Musk had reportedly ordered design alterations to the autonomous vehicle that will be unveiled.

The robotaxi event could also clear up conflicting reports on how meaningful the latest version of Tesla’s (TSLA) FSD system. Some users have raved about the latest FSD features and Tesla (TSLA) has said that it now has 1.6 billion miles driven using FSD (supervised) as it laps the competition in data collected. Meanwhile, Truist Securities recently reported back on what it said was a test drive of Tesla’s (TSLA) updated version of its autonomous driving software. Analyst William Stein said the new version was impressive, but does not solve autonomy. “The shortcomings that we observed make it challenging to imagine what TSLA will reveal in its RoboTaxi event in October,” highlighted Stein.

“For example, the Model Y accelerated through an intersection as the car in front of us had only partly completed a right-turn. My quick intervention was absolutely required to avoid an otherwise certain accident. Another intervention was required when a police officer used hand motions to signal to us to pull to the side of the road to allow a funeral procession to pass. A third intervention was less of a requirement and more of a convenience. Finally, in a section of our route, the highway was curvy and narrow, and had a solid white line separating lanes, signaling a prohibition against lane changes. Still, the Model Y switched lanes twice under that condition.”

The robotaxi concept is not unique to Tesla (TSLA). Companies such as Waymo (GOOG), Amazon’s (AMZN) Zoox, and Baidu’s (BIDU) Apollo, General Motors’ (NYSE:GM) Cruise, and Motional (APTV) (OTCPK:HYMTF) are all going down the autonomous vehicle road at varying paces. Just this week, Waymo expanded its robotaxi coverage in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Notably, Waymo has operated a commercial service 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the city of San Francisco since receiving approval from the commission in August 2023. Parent Alphabet (GOOG) chose to commit to a new multi-year investment of $5 billion in Waymo. “This new round of funding, which is consistent with recent annual investment levels will enable Waymo to continue to build the world’s leading autonomous driving technology company,” highlighted Alphabet CIO Ruth Porat during the recent earnings call (transcript).

Meanwhile, the Zoox autonomous ride-hailing service is closing in on welcoming its first public riders in Las Vegas. For its part, Zoox has Nvidia (NVDA) as a major partner. “The world has never seen a robotics company like this before,” stated Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the Zoox robotaxi development. Zoox uses NVIDIA GPUs and software tools to run a wide array of simulations, testing its autonomous systems in virtual environments before real-world deployment.

On the negative side, Motional pulled the plug on its Las Vegas autonomous tests and a food delivery program with Uber Eats in Santa Monica, California. “Large-scale driverless deployment will not happen overnight. Driverless vehicles will enter the market when the technology has evolved, and – just as importantly – when the business case for autonomous deployment is clear,” observed CEO Karl Iagnemma. Of course, Argo AI, which was backed by Ford Motor (F) and Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAF), has already folded up shop.

Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) and Lyft (NASDAQ:LYFT) are firmly in the mix of companies looking to scale a robotaxi fleet. “Uber is uniquely positioned to offer tremendous value for AV players looking to deploy their technology at scale,” stated Dara Khosrowshahi on the company’s recent earnings call (transcript). “While the operation of a ride hail network may seem simple, our technology obscures a huge amount of complexity,” he noted. Lyft (LYFT) made similar remarks during its Q2 earnings call (transcript) about the enormous opportunity that autonomous vehicles may present for the company.

In one of the biggest developments of the year for the ridesharing industry, Uber (UBER) and Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) announced that they are collaborating to build a global robotaxi fleet. As part of the partnership, Uber (UBER) plans to add more than 100,000 BYD vehicles over the next few years. The expansion will center on Europe before moving to Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.