The Forgotten Layer in the AV Stack

For years, we have been tracking the rapid development of AVs, and specifically the robotaxi domain. Initially, we were intrigued by the rapidly improving technologies, then shifted our attention to the business models and user interfaces. “Who’s going to own the customer?” has been a standing question for a long time. And lately, we have been impressed by the speed of scaling that the leading players have demonstrated.

But there’s another layer in the AV value chain that is now quickly getting a lot more attention. At first, it looks mundane, but it doesn’t take long to realize that the ultimate test of your ability to scale an AV operation may be how well you manage your vehicles out in the real world. They are supposed to drive around 24/7, collecting revenue from paying customers – without anything interrupting them.

Cue the operations teams!

Initially, this layer started to form as some of the early robotaxi players looked for someone else to finance their mobile assets. Then, as customers started using the vehicles frequently, came the need for someone to clean them. Add daily charging and both scheduled and emergency servicing to that, and it quickly becomes a huge undertaking.

Recently, some lawmakers have added another task to this layer. New regulations in California require AV operators to maintain 24/7 emergency response lines, enable emergency officials to reach a remote operator within 30 seconds, and execute geofencing changes within two minutes.

There are several players going after this new business opportunity. Some, like Avis from the legacy rental-car industry, are looking to expand their existing operations. Traditional transit operators, such as Transdev, have been active since long with e.g Waymo. Likewise, Uber has positioned some of the services it already provides for its ride-hailing vehicles toward robotaxis – and, of course, there are several startups. 

One exciting startup in this space is Moove, which began in 2020 as a Nigerian company focused on financing vehicles for ride-hailing drivers. In 2023, it landed its first contract with Waymo, and it is now becoming a key part of Waymo’s operations in several US cities, as well as in London, UK. Recently Moove raised $250 million at a multi-billion valuation, which should help them to keep growing.

Daniel Abreu Marques runs one of the most in-depth news services in the AV industry. If you’re interested in getting behind the developments we try to cover here, don’t miss The AV Market Strategist. Daniel has also kindly allowed Drive Sweden to use his infographic of this often-neglected AV layer as the illustration for this issue.

In other AV news this summer:

• After establishing national subsidiaries in several European countries in just a few weeks, Waymo announced that Munich will be the first EU city to offer a commercial service.
• Another EU announcement, albeit involving non-European players, is the deal between China’s CaoCao and US-based May Mobility to explore the large-scale commercialization of robotaxi services, starting in Europe.
• Nevada has granted permission to commercially operate 7,000 robotaxis in the state, with the bulk of them, somewhat surprisingly, ending up with Tesla.
• On a somewhat negative note, after announcing a deployment plan for later this summer only a few weeks ago, Wayve and Uber have postponed the launch due to a lack of regulatory guidance.
• Finally, UNECE has approved the first global framework that legally enables fully autonomous driving systems;  a decision that will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the future deployment of AVs around the world.