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Forbes
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Uber's VW Robotaxi Makes Space For Cyclists And Pedestrians While Waymo And Tesla Lag
MOIA robotaxi on the streets of Hamburg. I've had a preview ride in Volkswagen's driverless ID Buzz electric minivan, which, later this year, Uber will use for a robotaxi ridepooling project in Los Angeles. Christian Senger, CEO of MOIA, VW's autonomous driving subsidiary, joined me for the journey which saw the robotaxi successfully making space for cyclists and pedestrians. MOIA's production autonomous vehicle (AV) was unveiled in Hamburg, Germany, on 18 June, and VW claims it will soon be the first AV to receive regulatory certification in the EU. The ID Buzz AD, upgraded with 27 sensors, has ample room for four passengers (the non-AV version carries seven). Senger was sitting up front next to safety driver Axel Hein in a seat that will become luggage space when Uber soon takes delivery of its fleet. 'Here we see a car blocking the lane,' says Senger as we pull to a stop behind a double-parked motorist. 'Our vehicle now decides if this is part of a traffic queue and to stay put or if it's a badly parked car that should be passed. There, it has already decided to overtake, and off we go again.' VW safety driver Axel Hein at the wheel of a MOIA robotaxi in Hamburg. Hein's hands hovered over the steering wheel, but there had been no cause for him to take control: the black and bronze minivan pulled out by itself, its sensor suite deciding in short order that it was good to go. Thirteen cameras, nine LiDARs, and five radars pump five gigabytes of data per second to MOIA's onboard autonomous driving (AD) software. At a crosswalk, the MOIA-logoed vehicle slowed and stopped for pedestrians and didn't slam to a halt when a cyclist darted through on the inside. Instead, the minivan nudged over to make room. A human driver might have been surprised by the cyclist's seemingly sudden manoeuver, but the minivan's Mobileye sensor and software package anticipated the move, no robotic bird-flipping required. 'She is violating [German] traffic law,' Springer says of the darting cyclist. 'It's not allowed to ride with a bicycle over a zebra crossing—but we allow for the mistakes of others.' A console displayed the status of nearby static and moving vehicles, with stick figures representing pedestrians and cyclists oscillating between red and green depending on their proximity to us. What if a child ran out from the sidewalk between parked cars a meter or two distant, the test that a cameras-only Tesla operating Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode appeared to flunk recently? 'The child would be safe,' asserts Senger. 'Our sensors see things earlier than a human. A minivan's roof is high, and we also have sensors down very low so we can see underneath and above vehicles in front and to all sides. We have trained the system to understand what is and isn't relevant in the environment. If a cat sprang out from beneath a car, we would stop for that in good time, too.' Simulation of VW Moia robotaxis operating in Los Angeles. Uber's version of MOIA's driverless minivan will have NFC keyless entry through a dedicated smartphone app, start-stop buttons for passenger emergency use, and plain plastic flooring for any taxi-style liquid spills or worse. And forget about leaving wallets, phones, or bags on the cream leather seats—cabin cameras linked to speakers will alert alighting passengers that their belongings ought not to be left behind. The internal cameras also police behavior. AI spots any shenanigans—Senger jokes that fights would be prevented between passengers supporting rival soccer teams thanks to MOIA's pre-crime algorithms. Volkswagen's autonomous mobility division has been working on robotaxis for ten years. The name is based on 'Maya,' the Sanskrit word for magic, and was inspired by the Arthur C Clarke quote, 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' There's no crossbar on the 'A' at the end of the MOIA logo, and upside down, the 'M' and the 'A'—if you ignore the 'I' and the 'O'—spells VW. After discontinuing its troubled Cariad auto software system and pulling funding from its previous partner, Argo AI, VW signed with Intel-owned Mobileye four years ago. This partnership led to the rollout of a skunkworks version of a driverless ID Buzz for a small trial in Austin, Texas, in 2023. 'Leadership in robotaxis is about achieving the highest levels of safety with a technology package that can scale in volume, geography, and cost,' said a statement from Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua. Christian Senger, CEO of MOIA, VW's autonomous driving subsidiary. MOIA's Level 4 self-driving system—capable of speeds up to 130 kph—is enabled by four Mobileye EyeQ6H chips working with the company's REM AV mapping technology, which allows vehicles to adapt to any roads. 'We can even go on gravel roads,' says Senger. 'We are not using GPS,' he adds. 'GPS can be disturbed, as has been shown in recent geopolitics; we are more robust without it. Nor are we dependent on Google Maps or similar—it's our own map format.' In addition to MOIA, Uber also has North American AV partnerships with Waymo and Hyundai-linked robotaxi company Motional, and in the UAE, with WeRide. In a statement from earlier this year, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the Los Angeles trial with MOIA was a 'significant milestone in the advancement of autonomous mobility and highlights both Volkswagen's and Uber's shared dedication to building the future of transportation.' Unlike Uber's new Route Share service, which travels on fixed, bus-style routes with set pick-up and drop-off times, the ride-hailing operation with driverless ID Buzzes in Los Angeles will be a go-anywhere shared taxi service. The MOIA/Uber app would allow a woman traveling alone late at night to book a solo journey rather than ridepool. 'If you are a 17-year-old woman on the way home from clubbing at 1 o'clock in the morning, there will be an option [in the app] to book an exclusive ride,' soothes Senger. 'But at 7.30 in the morning, there's less risk, so a woman could choose to ridepool, knowing that there are cabin cameras monitoring for safety. If needs be, a remote operator can talk to passengers to check everything is OK. It's also easy to stop the ride in an emergency; if somebody is about to be sick, say.' Senger won't divulge how many miles MOIA's driverless vehicles go without human intervention. 'We measure with time, not distance,' he says before pointing at a cyclist ahead. 'He is cycling in the middle of the lane. We won't get any closer. Anyway, we're pulling in here because we've arrived at our first destination. We wouldn't have followed the cyclist closely. We will not do any crazy maneuvers; unlike many human drivers, we follow all traffic laws. If 50 kilometers an hour is allowed, but the cyclist is only doing 15, then the vehicle will pass only if there's enough distance not to bring any danger.' Back moving, we paused at a stop light ahead of a crosswalk and a right turn, frustrating the human motorist behind. 'We have green, but there's not enough room for us before the queue of cars ahead; a human driver might encroach on the crosswalk, but we won't.' The queue soon moved; we pulled ahead; the frustrated motorist behind hadn't been unduly delayed. 'We use the data of all this good behavior to convince authorities that we're smart and always stick to traffic regulations,' says Senger. 'We're good citizens.' MOIA's sensor suite recognizes the sirens and flashing lights of first responder vehicles but, for now, disengages to let the safety driver squeeze over to let them pass. 'We could add what to do in that sort of situation with a software update,' promises Senger, adding that the scenario has been robotically role-played on a private test track in Munich. 'There,' says Senger as we arrive back at the expo halls, 'we have driven through Hamburg fully autonomously.' Hein had little to do on our uneventful 36-minute journey. We had driven smoothly, successfully, and safely to and from the UITP Summit, a transit expo staged in Hamburg's exhibition halls and where MOIA had a booth. Many members of the transit industry believe they will have fully certified autonomous vehicles on the road, without safety drivers, before automakers. Way to go If recent incidents are anything to go by, there's still much room for improvement in robotaxi tech. A San Francisco-based cyclist is suing Waymo after she was seriously injured when one of the company's robotaxis stopped in a bike lane and a passenger opened a back door, hitting the cyclist and causing her to deflect into another Waymo car that was also illegally blocking the bike path. According to the lawsuit, the Safe Exit system employed by Waymo, which aims to alert passengers of surrounding dangers and hazards, failed. The injured cyclist claims that Waymo knows its cars are 'dooring' cyclists. Earlier this month the cyclist sued Waymo and Google's parent company Alphabet in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging battery, emotional distress, and negligence, while seeking unspecified damages. Wayme claims that its robotaxis recognize cyclists as 'unique users of the road,' drive conservatively around them, and recognise common hand signals. 'As technology moves forward, we believe it is crucial for all autonomous car companies to not move forward too quickly,' said a statement from Michael Stephenson, the cyclist's attorney. 'In the interest of public safety, they must make sure they are adequately testing and refining their technology before subjecting the public to these cars,' Stephenson added. In February 2024, a cyclist was injured in San Francisco after a Waymo robotaxi failed to detect his presence and struck him. 'The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle's path," said a company statement. 'When they became fully visible, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision.' Elon Musk's Tesla launched a rival robotaxi service this month in Austin, Texas, but the handful of vehicles are restricted to only certain areas of the city with geofencing, and the first journeys were with invited passengers only, including Tesla fans. The trial has not been without its problems, with many examples of poor autonomous decision made by the Tesla robotaxis highlighted by the well-funded Dawn Project. This organization is bankrolled by one of Musk's fiercest—and richest—critics who is doing his dollar-propelled darnedest to prick the belief bubble protecting Musk. Software billionaire Sam O'Dowd spends huge sums on TV ads and a PR campaign to highlight what he claims are the 'flaws' in Tesla's driverless FSD car tech. O'Dowd believes Musk's claims for FSD are fraudulent, with one of his personally-fronted TV ads asking whether Musk was guilty of running a 'trillion dollar Ponzi scheme.' If this anti-FSD campaign—which pre-dates the anti-Musk Tesla Takedown movement—works even a little it could lead to Musk's financial downfall, believes O'Dowd. Musk has previously admitted he's vulnerable on this front. '[My] overwhelming focus is on solving full self-driving,' Musk said during a June 2022 interview with three Tesla fanboys. 'It's really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money or worth basically zero.' O'Dowd, who made his fortune selling secure software for fighter jets and nuclear bombers, isn't a Tesla hater. He owns five Roadsters and four other Tesla cars, three of which are used as test vehicles by his anti-FSD campaign hosted on the Dawn Project website. 'The Roadster's fantastic,' he tells me from his Santa Barbara, California office. 'It's what I drive every day [and have done] for 15 years.' Nor is O'Dowd down on driverless cars in general. 'It's not that [autonomous driving] is impossible. Waymo made it work. Amazon has them; BYD in China has them—true self-driving cars [exist]. Tesla's [FSD] is nowhere close to [those technologies]. Elon Musk said recently [Tesla is] the leader in autonomy by far, [yet] the thing that its product is supposed to do—which is drive without anybody sitting in the driver's seat—[FSD] can't do.'
DW
20-06-2025
- Automotive
- DW
Autonomous driving: VW wants to overtake Tesla – DW
VW will launch the autonomous ID. Buzz AD in 2026. With that, it's hoping to overtake Tesla in the robotaxi race. Other competitors are also getting involved in this billion-dollar market. In Germany, there are many people who cannot manage without a car, particularly in the countryside, where public transport networks can be patchy, nonexistent even. Transitioning to electric, or e-, vehicles will not solve the transportation problem on its own. Privately owned electric cars may not run on oil, but they still consume resources, take up space, require roads and parking areas. But much could be resolved if people were able to switch to using robot taxis. For years now, countries like the USA and China have been running pilot projects with self-driving cars and driverless vans. These vehicles are also being tested in Germany, but so far no approvals have been issued for so-called level 4 systems — completely autonomous cars with no driver at the wheel. The German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) says that legally it is possible, in Germany and in the EU as a whole, but until now the general introduction of these vehicles still seems a long way off. Robotaxis from 2026, by VW But now VW has surged ahead with a driverless e-van: the ID. Buzz AD ("autonomous driving"), a level 4 vehicle that drives set routes. Europe's biggest car manufacturer presented the production version of the self-driving electric van in Hamburg on June 17. It is scheduled to go on the road in 2026. Initially, it will only be deployed in Hamburg and Los Angeles, but the intention is for it then to be rolled out more widely. "This certainly has not been set up as a small series production," says Christian Senger, a member of the board of management of VW Commercial Vehicles, who is responsible for its autonomous driving sector. The vans will be manufactured in very large numbers. The Hannover VW factory is set to produce more than 10,000 commercial vehicles. "We believe we can be the leading supplier in Europe," Senger says. VW already has a buyer, the Uber taxi service company. The two firms signed an agreement in April for cooperation in the US. According to Senger, Uber plans to purchase up to 10,000 VW e-vans over the next ten years. The ID Buzz AD has 13 cameras, five radars, and nine LiDARs (pictured), which use lasers to calculate distance Image: Lukas Barth/Reuters Overtaking Tesla VW has jumped ahead of Tesla with its ID. Buzz AD presentation. Earlier this month, Elon Musk "tentatively" announced June 22 — this Sunday — as the date for the launch of his own robotaxi, based on the Model Y SUV, but this is still unconfirmed. "We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift," Musk said at the time on his social media platform, X. Tesla's initial plans are for just 10 to 20 Model Y SUVs to operate as public robotaxis in one area of Austin, Texas, the city where Tesla is headquartered. But, as usual, Musk is thinking big. In an interview with US broadcaster CBS, he announced that there would be some 1,000 Tesla robotaxis on the road within months, and hundreds of thousands by the end of 2026. Musk also announced in May that several US cities would be approved for autonomous driving for private Tesla owners before the end of the year. This promise is not new: Back in 2017, he promised that this function would be activated within two years. Waymo: Google robotaxis miles ahead Right now, Google affiliate Waymo is streets ahead when it comes to autonomous driving. Waymo's driverless robotaxis are already on the road in several US cities, making more than 250,000 paid journeys with passengers every week. The vehicles are mostly converted electric cars made by Jaguar. Waymo also announced in May that it planned to more than double the number of vehicles by the end of 2026. Tech giant Amazon is also in the running for the emerging market in autonomous driving. Amazon's robotaxi company Zoox plans to put cars on the road in Las Vegas and San Francisco without steering wheels or pedals, with space for up to four passengers. Competition from China China is also looking to solve its transport problems through autonomous driving. The Google rival Baidu runs a fleet of around 1,000 Apollo Go robotaxis, which completed more than 1.4 million journeys in the first quarter of this year. The Chinese company has a fleet of more than 300 robotaxis, and it wants to increase this to as many as 3,000 by the end of next year. WeRide, meanwhile, has around 400 vehicles. Autonomous vehicles are already on the road in China, like this Apollo Go self-driving taxi Image: Johannes Neudecker/dpa/picture alliance Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2030 there will be about half a million robotaxis in service in more than 10 Chinese cities. In China, the question is no longer whether autonomous driving is possible, but how companies will make commercial use of the sector's rapid development. Projections for the future are very promising. The investment bank puts the total sales potential of the Chinese robotaxi sector at around $54 million (€47 million) this year but expects that figure to increase exponentially by 2035, to around $47 billion. VW focused on fleets, transport associations VW's new e-van is not aimed at private customers. Instead it hopes to supply business customers, fleet operators and transport associations, providing a package to include total software solutions, a booking app, fleet management and maintenance. In Hamburg, for example, the company has established cooperation with the local transport association, HVV. A declaration of intent has also been agreed with the Berlin transport authority, the BVG. VW hopes to gain approval to operate driverless cars in Europe and the US by the end of 2026. This would mean they would no longer need a safety driver, currently a mandatory requirement. VW says it would be the first such approval for level 4 autonomous driving in Europe. If level 4 self-driving vehicles are approved, a safety driver would no longer be required to sit behind the wheel Image: Lukas Barth/Reuters There is a catch though. VW's Senger does not expect the top dog of Germany's beleaguered auto industry to make any money, at least at first. In the long term, though, he explains that autonomous driving is the lucrative field of the future, one that promises to be much more profitable than the traditional automotive industry. "This is our big chance to establish a future opportunity for the VW Group," he says. The exact price has not yet been announced but the ID. Buzz AD is unlikely to come cheap. According to Senger, buyers will have to pay a low six-figure sum (in euros) per vehicle. Public funding is needed That means it's going to be expensive for transport companies. The Association of German Transport Companies or VDV, is calling for a nationally coordinated strategy of long-term financing, and a market launch supported by public funding, to establish the country's supremacy in this market. An autonomous shuttle bus in Germany, part of a pilot project that local public transport operators want to see more of Image: Swen Pförtner/dpa/picture alliance The current government's coalition agreement declares: "Germany is to become the leading market for autonomous driving, developing and co-financing model regions with the federal states." Ingo Wortmann from the VDV comments that start-up funding of around €3 billion is needed to take this idea from pilot project to standrad operating procedure. This article was originally published in German.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Waymo Recalls 80% of Robotaxis for Updates as L.A.'s Service Industry Goes Cyborg
Seventy-five years ago, a new kind of drive-in restaurant opened on Beverly Boulevard in Hollywood. The Track promised to do away with carhops (and tipping) by sending food down a conveyor belt directly to waiting automobiles parked around the building. The place lasted for about five minutes until the drive-thru window was born, but employers have long dreamed of eliminating pesky humans from the workplace. Restaurants, warehouses and now taxicabs are increasingly becoming automated as robots learn our jobs. For now, robo-lattes in Glendale and bionic pizzerias in East Hollywood are a fun novelty but when the A.I. is piloting two-and-a-half tons of British luxury car down the road, things can go wrong. Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, recently issued a recall for more than 80% of its fleet of 1,500 cars operating in Los Angeles, Austin, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Those Jaguar I-Pace robotaxis are under scrutiny after several high-profile incidents found the high-tech vehicles on the wrong side of the road, slowly crashing into telephone poles or trapping customers inside while doing donuts. This is at least the third recall and software update since last year when the company reported nine collisions, according to TechCrunch. 'Driverless cars,' Waymo said in a statement. 'Reduced injury causing collisions by 81% compared to expected human performance.' A Waymo in West Hollywood recently gave a little love tap to an Uber Eats Serve bot attempting to cross La Cienega Boulevard with someone's dinner. Next year, Volkswagen plans to roll out it's retro van ID Buzz AD on L.A. streets in partnership with Uber, right as Zoox, Amazon's capsule-shaped pushmi-pullyu hits the road. The concerns are not stopping the mechanical men from their goal of eliminating the puny mortal workforce. 'The robots don't take time off,' Shahan Ohanessian, CEO of cyborg-run convenience store VenHub told NBC. 'They're working seven days a week and they don't really celebrate holidays.' He also noted that the machines recently installed in Glendale and North Hollywood are bulletproof should anyone choose to go to war with our new robot overlords.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Uber and VW Team Up to Bring Robotaxis to a US City Near You
Volkswagen and Uber are teaming up to deploy a fleet of thousands of all-electric, fully autonomous robotaxis. The companies said in a press release Thursday that the ID Buzz AD minivans will launch in "multiple" US markets over the next decade, starting in Los Angeles next year. Testing is expected to begin later this year, the companies said. Initially, however, the vehicles won't be fully autonomous. Human operators will be on board "to help refine the technology and ensure safety," the companies said in a joint statement. The fleet will be equipped with sensors and software from MOIA, Volkswagen's autonomous mobility subsidiary. Before the rollout can begin, the companies will need to secure the appropriate permits and clearances from the state of California. The collaboration marks a major step in Uber's autonomous vehicle ambitions and Volkswagen's push to commercialize its self-driving platform. It also comes at a time when more self-driving taxis are hitting the road. Waymo, the driverless division of Google's parent company, Alphabet, continues to expand into new cities, from Austin to Tokyo. According to Michael Ramsey, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, the concept of robotaxis is starting to make a comeback. "If you stretch your mind back 10 years ago, a lot of companies were pretty bullish about this technology being widespread by 2020," he told CNET. "That obviously didn't happen, but now the technology has improved and come down a lot in price. I expect that we begin to see true commercialization over the next year or two." Meanwhile, Tesla is also working on both robotaxis and a so-called Robovan -- a larger autonomous vehicle designed to transport up to 20 passengers or carry cargo. Earlier this week, Tesla tweeted that it had recently completed over 1,500 trips and 15,000 miles using its full self-driving vehicles. Its supervised ride-hailing service is already live for select employees in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area. On its earnings call Tuesday, the company said it plans to expand the service to the public in Austin as early as June. It's unclear which other markets Volkswagen and Uber are targeting. The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Uber and Volkswagen Will Soon Let You Hop in a Shared Self-Driving Ride
Hot on the heels of their partnership announcement, Uber and Volkswagen will soon be launching shared autonomous rides, the companies said Wednesday. The initiative is slated to kick off in Los Angeles in 2026. Riders will be able to hail a fully electric, self-driving ride aboard the ID Buzz AD minivan. In April, the companies said they'll be deploying thousands of the minivans in "multiple" US cities over the next decade. Testing is slated to begin later this year, before the commercial launch in LA in 2026. Human operators will be on board the vehicles in the initial phase to ensure everything's running smoothly. "Autonomous technology will drive a safer and more affordable future for everyone, and we can't wait to expand access to it around the world," Uber said in a release. Currently, passengers in certain cities can summon autonomous vehicles through platforms like Uber and Waymo, but those rides aren't shared. Alphabet-owned Waymo operates fully autonomous rides for the general public in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, with a launch slated for Atlanta later this year. Depending on the city, you can either hail a Waymo through the company's Waymo One app or via the Uber app. Uber has teamed up with more than a dozen other autonomous vehicle companies, including May Mobility and Nuro. Shared rides could also address concerns about self-driving cars adding to traffic congestion. Critics have pointed to the "empty miles" that come with autonomous vehicles roaming around between pickups. If multiple people hop in the same car, it's more likely that there'll be someone on board. Shared autonomous rides are also a way for passengers to save money. In my experience, the cost of a Waymo in San Francisco is often slightly higher than a human-driven ride through Uber and Lyft. In cities where Uber offers rides aboard Waymo's self-driving vehicles, it says the price is comparable to a standard, non-AV ride. Shared autonomous rides take things a step further by giving you a discount -- with the cost being shared space with strangers.
