Samuel Huang

Alphabet's Waymo unit has received approval to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service to more parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Jose. In March, the company submitted a request to the California Public Utilities Commission to gain approval for its latest passenger safety plan, a key step in gaining permission to operate driverless vehicles across a broader area. On Monday, the proposed expansion was approved, allowing for Waymo's driverless coverage to extend from San Francisco down through the Peninsula. "We're very excited to share that the CPUC has approved our application to operate our fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in the South Bay and nearly all of San Jose!" the company wrote in a post on X on Monday. "While this won't change our operations in the near-term, we're looking forward to bringing the benefits of Waymo One to more of the Bay Area in the future." This self-driving car technology stock could pop by more than 400%, say thre

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Lucid announced a landmark initiative with NVIDIA to accelerate the path to autonomous features for Lucid vehicles. Working together, our team will bring eyes-on, point-to-point driving (L2++) to Lucid Gravity later next year, and one of the first true eyes-off, hands-off, and mind-off (L4) consumer owned autonomous vehicle to future midsize vehicles leveraging NVIDIA’s multi-sensor suite architecture, including cameras, radar, and lidar. Read more about today’s announcement: https://ow.ly/bIeB30sQSrt

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Lucid announced a landmark initiative with NVIDIA to accelerate the path to autonomous features for Lucid vehicles. Working together, our team will bring eyes-on, point-to-point driving (L2++) to Lucid Gravity later next year, and one of the first true eyes-off, hands-off, and mind-off (L4) consumer owned autonomous vehicle to future midsize vehicles leveraging NVIDIA’s multi-sensor suite architecture, including cameras, radar, and lidar. Read more about today’s announcement: https://ow.ly/vkfq30sQRi3

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Hyundai’s ‘Motional’ Robotaxi Runs With Empty Left Seat In Las Vegas // Motional is working to graduate to a real robocar, with no full time human supervision, but they still have a supervisor in the car - https://lnkd.in/gBVXjBzs

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Uber is betting big on robotaxis, with pure-play electric vehicle maker Lucid as its partner. Lucid stock is soaring in the process. The two companies, along with autonomous tech firm Nuro announced on Thursday morning a “next-generation premium global robotaxi program” exclusively for the Uber platform. The new robotaxi program would outfit the Lucid Gravity SUV with Nuros Driver Level 4 autonomous software, deployed on Uber’s platform and fleet management systems. Uber says the goal is to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid EVs equipped with the Nuro Driver over the next six years. https://lnkd.in/dGJs55HQ

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Uber is making another bet on robotaxis, signing a six-year deal with Lucid and autonomous vehicle startup Nuro. As part of the deal, Lucid is getting a $300 million investment from Uber to deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis over the next six years. Nuro is also receiving an undisclosed multi-hundred-million-dollar investment. A launch is expected in a major U.S. city next year. This isn't Uber's first foray into autonomous cars. The ride-hailing company has partnered with Alphabet-backed Waymo. It expanded Waymo robotaxi service to Atlanta and Austin, Texas, earlier this year.

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A lot of self-driving industry leaders are nervous about Tesla's pending robotaxi launch. “If they are not ready for prime time, they will significantly harm the ability for anyone and everyone to operate in this space,” says Selika Josiah Talbott. https://lnkd.in/ex_mnqBk

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It all starts here 🌉 The San Francisco Bay Area will be the first market to welcome the Uber-exclusive robotaxi, powered by Nuro and Lucid Motors, expected to begin in late 2026. On-road development with our Robotaxi Engineering Fleet is now underway, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in our Global Robotaxi Program. Over the coming months, more than 100 Nuro-driven Lucid Gravity vehicles will join the fleet as we continue to test, validate, and advance the future of safe, sustainable rides. The future is on its way! #AutonomousVehicles #Technology #Innovation #Partnership #ElectricVehicles

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I visited Santa Monica earlier this year and was surprised by how many self-driving cars I saw—especially Waymo’s. It felt like the future had already landed. But beyond the cool factor, I started noticing the smaller systems, needs, and business gaps forming around them. In this post, I explore not only the major infrastructure shifts but also the hidden micro-opportunities—some so accessible that even solo builders and small investors can get involved. https://lnkd.in/g2vbivA3

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New: Amazon's Zoox robotaxi unit has opened a sprawling manufacturing facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, paving the way for more vehicle production as it plans a commercial rollout of its fleet later this year. Zoox is racing to catch up with Alphabet's Waymo, which is the only fully public driverless ride-hailing service in the U.S. Tesla is also "tentatively" slated to launch its robotaxi service in Austin this weekend. The new Zoox site will eventually be able to produce as many as 10,000 robotaxis annually once it's at full scale. Zoox needs more of its toaster-shaped vehicles to roll off the assembly line in order to fulfill its mission of deploying a commercial ride-hailing service in the U.S. Rides are expected to open to the Las Vegas public later this year, followed by San Francisco in 2026. Rollouts in Austin and Miami are coming in the next few years. I toured the new facility in Hayward, California, yesterday and spoke to Zoox CEO Aicha Evans about the expansion. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e3yA6tK7

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Bad press around autonomous driving is inevitable. Especially when a headline involves a child. Recently, Waymo faced intense scrutiny after one of its vehicles struck a child near a school. The child was thankfully only lightly injured, but the story spread fast, and the reaction was strong. As it should be. What’s getting less attention is the uncomfortable nuance. According to Waymo’s data, the system detected the child immediately, braked hard, and reduced speed significantly before impact. Their internal analysis suggests a typical human driver, even an attentive one, would likely have hit the child at a much higher speed given the same conditions. That does not make the incident acceptable. But it does challenge the way we frame these conversations. We tend to ask: “Did the autonomous system fail?” We rarely ask: “Compared to what baseline?” Human driving sets a very low bar. We just don’t notice it because human errors are normalized. The real question isn’t whether autonomous systems are perfect. They’re not. It’s whether they can consistently make fewer and less severe mistakes than humans, especially in chaotic, high-risk environments like school zones. Public scrutiny is necessary. Transparency is non-negotiable. But progress in safety often looks worse before it looks better, because machine mistakes are visible, logged, and headline-worthy in a way human mistakes never are. If we want safer streets, the comparison has to be honest.

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