Anthony Townsend

Urbanist in Residence, Cornell Tech

Anthony Townsend, senior research associate at Cornell Tech and author of Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car, says these companies are still at different stages.

Townsend says:

“Tesla is really just getting started. Waymo has done much more testing and is now wrestling with the larger systemic challenges of operating a large fleet around the clock across entire metropolitan areas. Zoox is still in the early stages of proving out limited operations in the simpler road networks and good weather of the Southwest.

“It’s also not clear yet which company has the strongest business model. It’s always been the promise AV taxi companies will become cheaper than human-driven rides, but it’s not clear that’s even within sight. They are all believed to still be losing money and have not revealed much information about how or when they expect to break even.

“Over the long-term, taxibots are an extension of existing digital platforms — a computer you get inside of — which makes Waymo and Zoox make more sense. An AV is just another front door to search or shopping. 

“Other challenges are going to be things like capturing market share in an already-saturated market for ride-hail, or dealing with a diversity of local challenges around impacts on safety, congestion, and labor. Different states and cities are also going to have very different responses. The perception that AVs are a sort of data center on wheels does not help in the current environment and is likely to lead them to slow down a bit.”