Uber (UBER) has expanded its partnership with Waymo to offer driverless rides in Atlanta and Austin in early 2025. Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL)
Phil Koopman, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, joins Asking for a Trend to analyze the timeliness and overall viability of the robotaxis trend.
Koopman emphasizes the importance of Waymo’s fleet evolution: “The question is what challenges will they encounter when they start operating in new cities?” He expects “more surprises” for the company, pointing to incidents where its robotaxis have interfered with emergency response, such as blocking fire station driveways.
“I expect Waymo to pay attention and try to fix the problems, but we won’t know what the specific problems are until we see them,” Koopman adds.
He explains that while robotaxis companies like Waymo claim that safety is their priority, “the reality is that no one knows how this is going to play out.” Driverless vehicles are new, and there simply isn’t enough data to conclude that they are safer than human drivers.
“There’s enough data now to know that the small crashes, the fender benders, the minor injuries, there’s enough data that Waymo seems to be on the right track for that… They need 10 times the miles, 20, 50 times the miles before we know how it plays out for fatalities,” Koopman told Yahoo Finance.
While many investors are optimistic about robotaxis, Koopman has doubts about their sustainability as a business model: “I have a hard time seeing robotaxis as a business model because it’s a cheaper transportation service and the technology is very sophisticated and expensive. It requires a lot of support.” He argues that this could change in the future, but given the current state of the technology, it could be difficult to scale up.
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This article was written by Mélanie Riehl
