Robotaxi skalar snabbt upp mitt i tillväxtsmärtor

As expected in a fast-growing industry, there have been several notable developments in the robotaxi world lately. In short: Waymo continues to expand but has hit a few bumps in the road, Europe is finally starting to catch up, and one OEM group is emerging as the leading vehicle supplier. Want to know more? Here are the details.

Over the past few months, we have covered Waymo’s impressive scaling efforts and generally excellent safety performance. More recently, however, the company has encountered several edge cases that have required immediate action. While Waymo accelerated winter testing last year, it appears the company was not fully prepared for melted water either. When vehicles failed to respond adequately to flooded roads in Austin, service was temporarily suspended. In Atlanta, a dead-end street caused several Waymos to become stuck in a cul-de-sac. The most recent—and perhaps most serious—issue has involved vehicles entering freeway construction zones, leading to a recall of nearly 4,000 Waymo vehicles for a software update. That fix is not yet ready, so freeway operations have been suspended for the time being.

Not long ago, limited access to AV-ready vehicle platforms was a major obstacle to scaling. That is now changing, and one of the world’s largest OEM groups appears to be taking the lead. Stellantis, the company behind 14 well-established automotive brands, has entered into two major initiatives.

In Luxembourg, it was announced that Stellantis will provide vehicles for Bolt’s first autonomous vehicle deployment in Europe, powered by technology from Pony.ai. We will certainly hear more about this initiative when Vivetha Natterjee, Head of Autonomous Product & Deployment at Bolt, speaks at the Drive Sweden Forum—do not miss it.

Finally adding a European flavor to the AV tech stack, UK-based Wayve is part of a new partnership with Uber that will also use vehicle platforms from Stellantis. While the target market for this partnership is global, deployments are expected to begin in London, Tokyo, and several other cities around the world.

Wayve’s AI Driver uses an end-to-end approach, meaning that expanding operational areas should ultimately become much easier since it does not requiring intensive, high definition mapping. That said, Wayve’s technology has not yet been deployed in commercial robotaxi operations anywhere. However, if it lives up to its promise, this three-party partnership could become one of the strongest among the many AV alliances Uber has established since re-entering the autonomous vehicle market.