Nevada Approves Permits for Robotaxis, Paving the Way for Autonomous Ride-Sharing Services
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Nevada, get ready for the robotaxis. The Nevada Transportation Authority unanimously approved three permits Thursday that will allow Tesla, Uber, and Waymo to operate commercial robotaxi services in Clark County, home to Las Vegas. Together, these permits would deploy up to 8,000 robotaxis across the county over the next 12 months.
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EngadgetYou'll start seeing a lot more taxis in Las Vegas with no human driver behind the wheel over the coming year. The Nevada Transportation Authority has approved Tesla's, Waymo's and Uber's applications for an Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit, which gives them the authority to offer paid rides in Clark County, including Las Vegas. Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt has reported that Nevada officials gave Tesla permission to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next 12 months after their August 20th meeting.
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Tesla’s permit allows it to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis, while Waymo is allowed operate up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles over the next year. Uber was also approved for 1,000 robotaxis, which it will operate through partnerships with Hyundai subsidiary Motional and Zoox. Zoox already holds an autonomous vehicle network company permit that allows it to operate 100 robotaxis.
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The VergeEven after the jump in unsupervised Robotaxis, Tesla remains far behind its biggest robotaxi competitor. Waymo operates more than 300 driverless vehicles in Austin alone, and has around 4,000 vehicles across 10 other cities.
EngadgetMeanwhile, Waymo has received permission to deploy 1,000 robotaxis in the region over the next year. Authorities allowed it to ditch human riders and go fully autonomous in Las Vegas back in July, but with this new permit, the company can now charge for its rides.
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Uber has tried to position itself as the Goldilocks option in this fight, advocating for a hybrid approach in which ride-hailing networks are made up of humans and robotaxis. The company has even lobbied for a system that would require robotaxis to operate on a ride-hailing network that also uses human drivers, a stance that puts it at odds with Waymo and doubles as a hedge against its own autonomous ambitions falling short of Tesla’s or Waymo’s.
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Ars TechnicaThe rise in lobbying comes as Waymo and Uber push competing visions for the future of ride-hailing. Waymo wants a faster route to fully driverless commercial services, while Uber is advocating a staggered rollout in which robotaxis operate alongside human drivers.
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Waymo announced today that any riders can now be passengers in its Ojai model vehicles in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. In a social media post, the company highlighted the spaciousness and backseat entertainment features in the driverless vans. The Google-owned brand began offering limited pickups with this purpose-built robotaxi in the same three cities earlier this year.
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GizmodoNew look, same Waymo. The Ojai is officially on the road in SF, PHX, and LA for all riders. With tons of legroom and new features to make the space your own, it's like your home away from home. pic.twitter.com/prySK8Acu3
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Over the past two weeks, all 170 Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin monitored by the crowdsourced Robotaxi Tracker were unsupervised, the site’s creator, Ethan McKanna, told The Verge. Those rides involved 54 different cars. McKanna has also seen a sharp increase in unsupervised Robotaxis elsewhere, particularly Dallas and Houston, where roughly 30 driverless Teslas have been operating over the past week.
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EngadgetThis news isn't coming from Musk or anyone from Tesla, which gives it more credence. The information comes from a crowdsourced web app called Robotaxi Tracker. The site's creator, Ethan McKanna, told The Verge that all 170 Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin monitored by the app in the past two weeks were unsupervised, which involved 54 different vehicles. This is further corroborated by folks on social media.
5 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 TechCrunch Whether these companies will be able to launch that many robotaxis is an unanswered question. Testimony from Tesla representatives and the other companies suggests the answer is no.
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02 Gizmodo If you’re in the United States and want to ride in a Chinese EV, one of the easiest ways may be to call a Waymo.
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03 Engadget Authorities gave them permission to deploy thousands of robotaxis in Clark County.
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04 The Verge But the Austin shift itself appears to be real. “Austin has seemingly stopped supervised rides for a couple weeks now,” McKanna said. “Plates previously marked as supervised have been confirmed to be offering unsupervised rides.”
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05 Ars Technica Waymo has sharply increased its lobbying spending as it seeks to persuade US regulators to clear a path for fully autonomous taxi services, intensifying its battle with rival Uber over the future of robotaxis.
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Sources (5)
- verge
- techcrunch
- gizmodo
- arstechnica
- engadget