It is fun that the hangar in which taxis without driver rests, which circulate through Austin exclusively for Uber customers, is in front of one of the buildings that Tesla has in the metropolitan area of the capital of Texas, where its owner, the company took the company in full pandemic, said, of drift “woke” of California. It is as if to the road without attributes that separates the two industrial buildings, the front of the war for the future of autonomous driving had been transferred.
On one side, there are Uber and Waymo, which premiered at the beginning of March a collaboration agreement in the city, which has been transforming into the autonomous taxis of Waymo, owned by Alphabet (Google), already furrowed without driver by Austin, in addition to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix; The novelty is that they now provide their service – as they will do it soon in Atlanta – only through the application of Uber, which makes available to its “tens” users of cars (those responsible for the technological are not more specific). They operate in an area of 95 square kilometers and as part of an offer that continues to include vehicles with driver.
On the other side of the road is Musk, who has promised that Tesla will disembark here with her own service in June, although almost nobody in a sector that lives a slow camera bum puts her hand in the fire for that landing. Not so much because the richest man in the world, who this week got, is absorbed in “what has earned him attacks on concessionaires and load stations and has made the company lose 40% of its value in the stock market – but because it already accumulates a decade of broken promises on the imminent integral landing of Tesla in autonomous driving. Last October, when he presented his prototype of Cybercab – with his futuristic appearance, without a steering wheel or pedals – the markets, dissatisfied with the demonstration, punished him with a fall of 8.7% of his assets.
This week, a handful of Uber executives were in Austin to share with the press the details of the new pact on a trip organized by the company. Also, to sing the benefits of the Tejana city as the ideal laboratory to rehearse the company’s plans for the future of transport: “Electric, shared and autonomous in a world with less and less cars.” The idea that the chosen scenario is in Texas – a state proudly settled on its oil wells – talks about how much a city has changed whose population grows without stopping, largely, thanks to the employees of technological technological ones attracted by a very favorable taxation.
“A market with so many people excited about new technologies is a great starting point,” says Noah Zych, Global Autonomous Mobility Manager and Uber delivery. The propitious regulation, the benevolent climate for autonomous cars (which have worse the cold than heat) and the clean and wide layout of its center end up explaining the why of the wide offer in Austin: in addition to Waymo, here they are in adam tests (Volkswagen) and, as well as a local company, Avride, which has already allied with Uber to distribute food at home Beach fridge.
In his agreement with Waymo, Uber is responsible for putting the cars full of sensors, cameras, radars and lights at the service of their users, which perhaps they would not feel the impulse to try them if they had to download another app further. To opt for an autonomous trip, they have to activate that appetite in the preferences of your phone, and the algorithm will already decide if you are assigned a car with or without driver.
From Uber’s account – whose main competitor, Lyft, aspires to landing at the Robotaxi next year in Dallas – also runs the maintenance of the fleet, a task that they have entrusted to a Spanish company with which the technology works in several countries of Europe and its founder, Manuel Puga, was these days in Austin supervising the launch), as well as organizing prices and flows.
They are the ones who manage at what time the robotaxis have to be in which part of the city and when it is convenient for them to be collected at night, since it does not seem a good idea that one of those gadgets walks along six street, popularly known as the “dirty six” by the flood of drunkards that pilgrimage from bar in bar every day when the sun falls. [Aviso para quienes sientan la tentación del vandalismo o de sentarse en el asiento del conductor: los taxis autónomos cuentan con múltiples cámaras dentro y fuera del vehículo. También con micrófonos, aunque un mensaje de audio garantiza al usuario que sus conversaciones no se grabarán].
Waymo is responsible, on the other hand, to equip cars, of the Jaguar brand, with a fifth generation technology on which those responsible are extremely hermetic. In addition, they repair them, they assist them on the road and take care of the security reviews. The company owned by Alphabet, which has passed in a few months from 10,000 to 200,000 weekly trips, is even more leader in the sector after the resignation of General Motors last December to continue financing Cruise, his adventure in the autonomous driving business, months after losing his license in California after the outrage of a pedestrian in San Francisco
On board with no one behind the wheel
Sachin Kansal, CEO of Product app of your company. The Robotaxi came after a while, with its initials, SK, blinking on the ceiling. Once inside, Kansal explained in the rear seat, and while the steering wheel was spinning alone, that both companies, which in 2018 faced in the courts in litigation by industrial espionage, have reached an agreement because Uber sold their autonomous driving business in 2020, two years after a woman died in Arizona after being overwhelmed by one of her cars. That resignation gave way to the commitment of the technology for “the platform approach”, which has led the company to develop agreements with 14 autonomous technology partners.
The price paid by the executive was the same as if the Uber had arrived with someone at the wheel. Before the demonstration trip, Andrew Macdonald, Senior Vice President for Mobility and Commercial Operations of Uber, had pointed in a presentation another advantage in addition to the obvious for those who do not enjoy human contact: work is easier to organize than with drivers, than – at least in the United States, where the market is free and anyone can be rider No need for a license – they connect or stop working when they are suggested. “With machines everything is much more predictable,” he said. “And in addition, you don’t have to leave tip.” And that, in a country like this, where it is such an entrenched custom, is no small thing.
So Operation can be more convenient, but also much more expensive, warns the lawyer and engineer Bryant Walker Smith. Autonomous driving expert at the University of South Carolina, points to the great unknowns of the business: now that robotaxis are already a common presence in some cities. How long will the investment patience of technological ones last “are companies with high development costs, with an extensive digital and human infrastructure. It is not possible for one of those cars that earns less than the minimum wage. ”
To the question of whether that means that this driver can be calm about the future of his work, Smith replied: “I think we should all worry about our work future. It seems to me that the emergence of artificial intelligence has cast the elitist assumption that those who do an intellectual work will be better protected than the rest.”
The expert also recalls that in autonomous navigation there is always a degree of human participation. “There are two models,” he clarifies, “that of remote driving, with someone sitting hundreds of kilometers in front of a monitor, controlling the car, and that of remote assistance, which is what Waymo says he uses, in which the person only intervenes when there is a situation that the car does not know how to solve alone; such as, if he is throwing up a fire truck.” In a post of last year, the company compared that help with “the friend you call to make you a hand” in a hurry. “These companies,” says Smith, “they don’t like to reveal what is behind the curtain.”
In a visit to the Austin warehouse where the Robotaxis, Samarth Kerjiwall said that cars are “really expensive assets”, although he also did not want to reveal how much (in a podcasta Waymo manager spoke last year of a figure close to $ 100,000 per unit), and that is why they are circling all day to amortize them as soon as possible, while waiting for technology to go back. “Our algorithm returns them when the battery is low and can no longer make more trips,” Kerjiwall said. Once back, the car looks only close to the charger, and then, in another demonstration that the human is still very present in this future of machines, an operator does what only one person can do: plug it in.
Kerjwall also assumed, like all Uber representatives present this week in Austin, which, since the robotaxis are constantly reviewed, autonomous driving is more reliable than the traditional one taking into account the amount of daily trips that the Waymo do. [En su presentación, MacDonald dijo que el avance de la tecnología no servirá en un sector extraordinariamente sensible a la mala noticia de un accidente si no va acompañado de “un historial de seguridad sobrehumano”, aunque no pareció reparar en la ironía del adjetivo escogido].
Peter Kurdock, advisor to a veteran organization based on Washington, does not agree. “I’m afraid that we are still very far from being able to be completely calm. Some of these vehicles have starred in very serious accidents, a few fatal, and their systems are currently under investigation of the National Traffic Security Administration,” he warns. Kurdock, who misses federal regulations to order traffic in the sector, also worries that companies always choose places like Austin, “where winter practically does not exist,” to test their cars.
Nor, how they will manage in more hostile environments, such as the busy streets of New York or in the jungle of the metropolis asphalt such as Mexico or Calcutta. And if you are wondering how long we will have to wait for technology to arrive in Europe, you better take a seat in your old car. Although the United Kingdom and Germany, where limited evidence has already been allowed, seem closer to achieving it, the strict regulations of the old continent – in view that Uber no longer has the habit of its beginnings of launching to operate before asking for permission – advise patience in places like Spain. In that market there is a draft of a regulation that regulates autonomous driving still pending to be approved, while the Community of Madrid de Isabel Díaz Ayuso aspires to put it in the lead, and the traditional taxi remains on a war footing in Barcelona against the Uber and other VTC companies (driver -free tourism vehicles).
In Austin, the law will never be a problem, and that is why the city has become a test field and a front in the war for the future of autonomous driving, and its neighbors no longer turn when they see a robotaxi pass. After using Waymo for a couple of days through its streets, the conclusion is that they conduct and stop softly, although some curves, especially in the roundabouts, take them with some abruptness. Also that, as happened on one of the trips, if one is left 100 meters from destiny, there is no other than walking them. Obviously, there is no one to say: “Excuse me, it’s a little later.”
