150,000 Rides a Week and Counting

This Week in The Autonomy Economy, The Road to Autonomy Index declined 2.38%, Waymo announced that the company is now driving over one million fully autonomous miles a week while providing over 150,000 paid rides. Jesse Levinson, Co-Founder & CTO of Zoox offered a glimmer of insight into Zoox and their plans to launch a service and GM continues to remain fully committed to personally owned autonomous vehicles.

As we enter the final two months of the year, the autonomy economy has continued to emerge. In the public markets, The Road to Autonomy Index has returned 16.16% YTD, slightly underperforming the S&P 500 by 3.94% YTD (year to date).

In the private markets the autonomy economy has seen billions of new investment dollars flow into economy and we expect to see hundreds of millions more by the end of the year. As Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk have discussed on Autonomy Markets, investors' appetite for autonomy continues to grow both in the private and public markets. 

Looking to next year, we expect GM to raise outside capital for Cruise. The capital market timing for GM is favorable, in addition to the Cruise business being back on track with new leadership and a clear commercialization strategy. If GM is able to raise over $1 billion in new outside capital for Cruise, it would be a validation of Cruise 2.0 strategy.

2024 was the year that the autonomy economy truly began to emerge. In 2025, the autonomy economy will turn one. It will be the second U.S. Presidential Administration for this young emerging economy and the second set of rules and regulations. No matter what happens on Tuesday, November 5th in the United States, the autonomy economy will continue its gradual evolution.

WHAT’S MOVING THE MARKETS | AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

150,000 Rides a Week and Counting

On Alphabet’s Q3 2024 earnings call, Sundar Pichai CEO of Google and Alphabet, announced that Waymo is now driving more than 1 million autonomous miles and serving over 150,000 paid rides per week.

Waymo is becoming a business and Mr. Pichai is clearly seizing the moment as he regularly discusses Waymo’s progress on Alphabet’s quarterly earnings calls. On this call, the following statement stood out to us:

Multiple paths to market. What are those paths to market? Could we see Waymo once again re-enter the autonomous trucking sector? Or perhaps we could see Waymo license the Waymo driver to an OEM(s) that want to develop a personally owned autonomous vehicle? If this were to happen, what premium could an OEM achieve if their vehicle was powered by Waymo?

An OEM that is strategic should jump at the opportunity, as it would give them a clear narrative when it comes to competing with Tesla’s FSD. At this time, we see the autonomous driving licensing market for passenger vehicles in the U.S. shaping up as follows: (In alphabetical order) 

• Nuro

• Tesla

• Waymo

• Wayve

Whether or not all of these companies ultimately secure licensing customers, we believe at this time, they stand to benefit the most. Then there are two outliers that we could see potentially entering the market in the future, Aurora and Cruise.

While we do not know what the future holds, we do know that Waymo continues to be the undisputed leader in the development and commercialization of autonomous vehicles. As Waymo continues to rack up the miles, paid rides and cities, we are looking forward to Alphabet sharing more details on the business of Waymo.

Our take: Next stop, profitability. With a clear focus on cutting costs, it’s only a matter of time until Waymo becomes profitable. The big question becomes, when does the robotaxi business become profitable and what has to happen to achieve profitability? 

Waymo is currently ranked #1 with a bullish outlook on the AUTONOMY LEADERBOARD in the autonomous vehicle category. 

Tesla and Waymo parent Alphabet are The Road to Autonomy Index component companies

WHAT’S MOVING THE MARKETS | AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Zoox is Preparing to Launch Commercial Service

The day is here (almost). Zoox has publicly announced that the company will deploy dozens of their bespoke autonomous vehicles in San Francisco and Las Vegas over the coming weeks. But there is a catch, you cannot catch a ride just yet. The service will be initially for employees only.

Next year, Zoox is planning to introduce an explorer program in a similar fashion to Waymo’s early rider program that will allow select members of the public to ride in the vehicles. How large the explorer program will get remains to be seen, then in 2026 Zoox is aiming to “grow” the service.

These are potentially positive steps from a company that does not communicate very much. But will this be too little too late as Waymo will have added new cities, Cruise will be operating a paid commercial service in multiple cities and Tesla could have a robotaxi service in operation by then?

When timelines and goals are years away, it is vitally important to remember that markets change, consumers habits and desires change. Trends change as well. One moment a product is hot (anyone remember Beanie Babies) and the next moment it’s over.

When Zoox first introduced their bespoke vehicle on December 14, 2020 (4 years ago), the market was embracing a shared carriage style design. Roughly a year before Zoox showed off their vehicle, GM unveiled the Cruise Origin on January 21, 2020. The Origin has since been retired, could the Zoox vehicle be next as the market has changed?

The market is now embracing a smaller form factor vehicle that is tailored for private single-rider use, not shared use. If the market for shared carriage style design goes the way of Beanie Babies, will Zoox be forced to design a new vehicle?

Or does Zoox double down on their current design and press forward despite a changing market? Either way, Amazon has a lot of decisions to make as the market for robotaxis is evolving rapidly and they barely have a seat at the table.

If Amazon gets investor pressure, could they look to cut bait and sell the company? Or could they choose to double down and continue to invest in Zoox and pivot to a new vehicle design? 

No matter what path Amazon ultimately chooses, investors desire clarity on the business and how it will ultimately make money. We will continue to urge Andy Jassy to provide investors with insights into the business in a similar manner to the way Sundar Pichai and Alphabet share insights into Waymo.

Our take: For the market to properly value Zoox and understand its role in the autonomy economy, we need clarity. Amazon’s silence on Zoox speaks volumes.

Zoox is currently ranked #3 with a neutral outlook on the AUTONOMY LEADERBOARD in the autonomous vehicle category. 

Alphabet, Tesla and Zoox parent Amazon are The Road to Autonomy Index component companies

PIQUING OUR INTEREST

Waymo is Now Valued at $45 Billion After the latest $5.6 billion funding round, Waymo is now valued at more than Ford (Ford has a market cap of $40.63 billion).

Waymo Introduces EMMA This week Waymo introduced an End-to-end Multimodal Model for Autonomous driving powered by Gemini. It will be interesting to see if and when Waymo takes this model into the wild and tests it rigorously. Could a Waymo “Light” Driver be in the works?

GM Remains Committed to Personally Owned Autonomous Vehicles In an appearance at TechCrunch Disrupt, GM CEO Mary Barra once again reiterated her support for personally owned autonomous vehicles.

Uber’s Revenue Grew 20% in Q3 Uber’s core business segments of Mobility and Delivery continued to grow in Q3. Mobility (gross bookings) were up 17% year-over-year to $21 billion and Delivery (gross bookings) were up 16% year-over-year to $18.7 billion.

Aurora Delays Driver Out till April 2025 Aurora made the difficult decision of delaying driver-out operations until April 2025. The news does not come as a surprise and we view it as a breath of fresh air. Aurora made the right decision, both for the long-term health of the company and the entire autonomous trucking industry.

U.S. Navy is Prioritizing Autonomy The U.S. Navy is now prioritizing autonomy as the service prepares for adversarial threats from China.

SOCIAL BUZZ | AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Nuro Expands Testing in the Bay Area

Nuro has expanded their autonomous vehicle testing operations in the Bay Area to an additional eight cities. Nuro is rapidly ramping up testing operations as the company has shifted their overall focus to an autonomous driving licensing model.

Our take: By Q1 2025, we expect a public announcement from Nuro announcing a Nuro Driver licensing deal with an OEM. 2025 will be the year of licensing.

SOCIAL BUZZ | AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

Waymo Is Testing Scheduled Rides

As the Waymo One service continues to expand, the service has been plagued with long-wait times. Scheduled rides can begin to solve some of the wait time issues. The other way to solve the issue long-term is by investing in developing a pipeline for specially-trained autonomous vehicle mechanics and technicians.

On the latest episode of Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discussed the supply chain issues currently plaguing Waymo and why investing in mechanics and technicians is the long-term fix for reducing wait times.

Our take: Autonomous vehicles are going to create new high-paying jobs. Specialized mechanics and technicians are needed and they will play a vital role in the autonomy economy.

Waymo parent Alphabet is a The Road to Autonomy Index component company

THE ROAD TO AUTONOMY INDEX WEEKLY PERFORMANCE

The Road to Autonomy Index® is a high-definition lens into the emerging world of autonomous vehicles and trucks. It is the world’s first and only pure-play index designed to measure the performance of the autonomous vehicle/truck market.

For the week of October 21st, The Road to Autonomy Index declined 2.38%, the S&P 500 declined 1.37% and the NASDAQ 100 declined 1.57%. The Road to Autonomy Index underperformed the S&P 500 by 1.01% and underperformed the NASDAQ 100 by 0.81%.

Year to Date (YTD), The Road to Autonomy Index has returned 16.16%

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The Road to Autonomy Index Component Companies

For more information on The Road to Autonomy Index and to learn about licensing and marketing opportunities, please email [email protected]

THE ROAD TO AUTONOMY PODCAST

Off-Road Autonomy: Emerging Multi-Billion Dollar Markets

(October 29, 2024) Sam Abidi, President, Apex Advisors joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the rapidly evolving off-road autonomy market, its unique dynamics and why the market is full of opportunity.

Watch on YouTube | Spotify | X

AUTONOMY MARKETS PODCAST

Waymo’s New EMMA Model for Autonomous Driving, Zoox’s Pending Launch and The Great Tesla Divide

(November 2, 2024) As Waymo grows their service and experiments with new models, Zoox is now preparing to join the party and launch a robotaxi service in both San Francisco and Las Vegas next year. While Zoox is about to join the robotaxi party, Tesla and their desire to launch a robotaxi service continues to divide the public and the market.

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