The New Triple Threat Is on the Road

The Whole Picture. Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, three firms vying to create the greatest artificial intelligence, were the triple threat that everyone was talking about not too long ago. The new one is currently on the road. Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox are racing for control of the robotaxi market, a type of autonomous vehicle that can pick you up and drive you anywhere a human could.

Waymo is way out front. Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, currently operates paid autonomous trips in 14 US locations after launching on September 1 in Denver, San Diego, and Tampa. With over 4,000 vehicles and over 500,000 weekly rides, it aims to provide one million weekly rides by the end of the year. In February, investors valued it at $126 billion.

Tesla is scaling fast. Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa are where Tesla operates rides without a safety monitor. The Cybercab, a two-seater vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, was introduced in Austin on September 3, the day it surpassed one million fully autonomous miles.

Zoox is the wild card. Amazon's company, creates a "pod" with four seats facing one another, with no steering wheel. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted it the first-ever exemption to charge for rides in a specially designed robotaxi in July, with a cap of 2,500 vehicles annually. In August, Las Vegas began offering paid rides.

Everyone is here. These six are all based in the Bay Area. Foster City is home to Zoox, Mountain View is home to Google and Waymo, and San Francisco is home to Anthropic and OpenAI. Although it was founded in the Bay Area, Tesla maintains its engineering headquarters in Palo Alto and manufactures its robotaxi vehicles in Fremont. The company relocated its headquarters to Austin in 2021. The two most important tech races at the moment, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars, are being held in the same 50 miles between San Francisco and San Jose.

Multiple service providers. In San Francisco may be the only city in the world where you can choose from four robotaxi services. Over 260 square miles of the San Francisco Bay Area are currently covered by Waymo. In SoMa, the Mission, and the Design District, Zoox operates roughly 100 cars that provide free rides. Tesla, Cruise, and even Uber, which is introducing its own substitute created in collaboration with the now-defunct Lucid company. If you love tech and the new innovations, it might be a sign to move to the tech capital of the world!

You cannot buy Waymo or Zoox on their own. Amazon (AMZN) Zoox and Alphabet (GOOGL) for Waymo are parent companies. Autonomous vehicles represent a tiny portion of a larger business. Tesla (TSLA) is the most direct bet, its stock fluctuates in tandem with robotaxi news, and you will soon be able to purchase and distribute your own robotaxi to generate passive income.

The catch. Nobody has proven yet that robotaxis can be a profitable business at scale. The number to watch is weekly rides. If Waymo hits 1 million a week by year end, that is the clearest sign this is a real business and not a science project.

Sources: Drive Tesla Canada, Motor1, TechCrunch, San Francisco Standard, AI Weekly, AI2 Work, Claims Journal, Crypto Briefing, Yahoo Finance.

Image credits: Cover: Tesla. Gallery: Waymo; Zoox.

Sources: Drive Tesla Canada, Motor1, TechCrunch, San Francisco Standard, AI Weekly, AI2 Work, Claims Journal, Crypto Briefing, Yahoo Finance.

Image credits: Cover: Tesla. Gallery: Waymo; Zoox.