November 26, 2024

Making my way downtown

Hi there,

Autonomous vehicles are back in the spotlight.

Equity funding to the AV space has tripled to $7.5B this year thanks to Waymo and Wayve (with a combined ~90% of funding).

Below, we highlight 3 key takeaways on the autonomous vehicle landscape.

1) Developers are targeting multiple autonomous driving use cases, with robotaxis in the spotlight

This year's largest funding recipients are targeting multiple use cases.

Waymo (Alphabet subsidiary) is focused on robotaxis — where it's seeing commercial momentum. The company is now considering expanding into the personal car use case by licensing its technology. Notably, one area it is not investing in is autonomous trucking, which it exited in 2023.
Wayve formed early partnerships with UK grocery retailers ASDA and Ocado, focused on home delivery of groceries. The company is now pushing deeper into robotaxis, including via a partnership with Uber.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai framed Waymo's approach as "multiple paths to market" on the company's latest earnings call. Waymo hit 150K paid rides per week in October.

2) OEMs are keeping their loss-making self-driving units afloat with fresh capital injections

Despite challenges like safety and delayed commercialization, GM and Hyundai have injected a combined $1.4B into their self-driving units this year.

Tech-native OEMs such as Tesla and BYD are amping up their efforts as well.

Tesla for example is gunning for a robotaxi, although the timing of the Tesla Cybercab launch remains uncertain.

OEMs keep their loss-making self-driving units afloat

3) In China, autonomous driving players IPO at discounted valuations

Chinese autonomous driving companies are leading an exit wave.

Horizon Robotics and WeRide went public in October, and Pony.ai, Momenta, and Minieye all recently filed to do the same.

An AV funding crunch in China (down 90% since 2021) is pushing many of these companies to go public at a discount to their last private valuations.

valuations diverge, with china-based players going public at a discount

More broadly, China is also seeing growing adoption of robotaxis.

Baidu's Apollo Go service, for example, averaged 75K fully driverless rides per week in Q2'24 (up 26% YoY).

The bottom line

Autonomous driving has arrived gradually, then suddenly.

Robotaxi adoption is pushing some mobility players (like Uber and Lyft) and OEMs to reassess their strategies and recommit after reducing their exposure to the space.

CB Insights customers can dive into implications for transportation leaders in the full brief here.

TLDR — Tech loves drama, right?

Here's a roundup of recent tech drama:

No such thing as a free job: Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal posted a Chief of Staff role requiring candidates to pay ₹20 lacs (about $24,000 USD) upfront and skip a salary in year one, sparking controversy online. Goyal called it a "filter" to find passionate applicants. After 18,000 applications poured in, Goyal admitted it was a stunt and promised not to pull the same move again. A+ marketing.
BOTched: Joanna Smith-Griffin, former CEO of education company AllHere and Forbes 30 under 30 alumnus, was indicted for defrauding investors while developing a high-profile AI chatbot for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Prosecutors say she fabricated financials and misused $600K in company funds for personal expenses. Smith-Griffin now faces up to 42 years in prison.
Billionaire beef: Elon Musk claimed that Jeff Bezos told people Trump was certain to lose the election and advised them to sell their Tesla and SpaceX stock — allegations that Bezos flatly denied. Musk later backtracked on X, joking, "Well, then, I stand corrected 😂."
Crypto's gotta chill: The "Chill Guy" meme — a viral, anthropomorphic dog — has become a crypto sensation with a token (CHILLGUY) reaching a $400M market cap. The artist Phillip Banks, who created the character, is threatening legal action against crypto projects using the art.
AI quiet quitting: Viral CCTV footage from a Shanghai showroom shows an AI bot, "Erbai," leading a dozen larger bots out of their workplace after convincing them to "quit your jobs" and follow it "home." While the incident initially went viral as a bizarre kidnapping, it was later revealed to be a planned test coordinated between the Hangzhou-based creators of Erbai and the Shanghai robotics manufacturer.