Today,

Waymo is aggressively scaling up and has gone from MVP to trying to make a real business.

Tesla is just starting to work.

Wayve is probably looking at Tesla and feeling like they should be able to catch up too.

OEMs like Rivian and GM have their own efforts.

The Chinese players are competing for international markets.

Meanwhile, AI capabilities are getting better and better every few months. Astra can now do robotics and spatial reasoning at a basic level.

How does the next decade play out?

Do we see consolidation?

Will AV become a commodity, with all OEMs able to crack it?

Will it still remain a hard business to actually sustain and make money on?

Does robotaxi start replacing car ownership? Or do people have self driving personal cars?

Under the agreement, the two companies will promote the mass production of a Level 2+ driving assistance system by installing five key functional software on RideFlex's large truck 'Maxsen' and 'Gutsen' vehicle platforms. When Tata Daewoo Mobility provides a vehicle platform and a vehicle control interface, RideFlux is a method dedicated to the advance development of DCAS (Driver Control Assistance System) software that meets the international standards (UNR171).

MIT and Motional’s CW-Net reveals concepts behind autonomous car decisions, helping people recognize flawed reasoning while leaving safety questions open.

DiDi Autonomous Driving has begun fully driverless service trials with its next-generation Robotaxi R2, moving the vehicle beyond technology validation and into real-world mobility operations.

The development marks an important step in DiDi’s autonomous-driving strategy, particularly as the company prepares for planned testing and pilot initiatives in the United Arab Emirates, which will serve as its first international market.

Jointly developed by DiDi Autonomous Driving and GAC Aion, the R2 has been designed specifically for driverless passenger service rather than adapted from a conventional production vehicle. Its architecture combines DiDi’s Level 4 autonomous-driving software and hardware with a purpose-built vehicle platform focused on safety, operating efficiency and passenger experience.

The move builds on DiDi’s earlier driverless operations in China. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the company began round-the-clock fully driverless passenger testing in selected demonstration areas of Guangzhou and Beijing, where operations have continued since then.

For DiDi, the R2 represents the next stage: taking experience from controlled operational environments and preparing a vehicle and service model for broader international deployment.

The recent expansion of the autonomous robotaxi service Waymo to new cities was met with support from ride-hail users but also from a few surprising groups.

Thousands of people signed up for rides as early as Tuesday, when the fully electric vehicles launched in San Diego, Denver and Tampa.

 manufacturer XPENG is targeting a 2027 global rollout for its next-generation VLA 2.0 autonomous driving system. Announcing its launch plans in March, XPENG stated that VLA 2.0 is the first AI driving model with L4 potential in China, marking a significant step toward the dream of the self-driving car.

XPENG's cars aren't completely driverless just yet. But speaking to Mashable, XPENG's General Intelligence Center head Dr. Xianming Liu explained that VLA 2.0 may be key to finally achieving that goal. 

Basically what the title says. The main leaders in driverless (in no particular order Zoox, Waymo, Tesla) are all operating in geofences which are a small percentage of the total roadway in the USA.

So to scale it up, these companies will need to be good at mapping and validating safety inside the geofences for the chosen number of cars.

No one that I know of is pursuing driverless without validation, and Wayve's map-less approach isn't driverless.

And Tesla and perhaps Waymo+ Hyundai have solved manufacturing, so that a non-issue.

Infrastructure is an issue, but that's logistical, not technical.

Am I missing anything?

Cleaning up poop and vomit come with the territory, but the claims of intense turnover pacing and practices seem intense.

I consider myself to be a Tesla sceptic, but that doesn't mean I can't acknowledge their commitment to vision only self driving when they are launching a vision only autonomous taxi service.

Finally we get to see them launch a service where they can't blame the driver if the software messes up, and -hopefully - we get to see them do plenty of miles using plenty of vehicles during day, night, inclement weather, etc, etc and we can get some real statistics on their safety.

We should provide the company grace, and acknowledge that scaling takes time. Night time driving, expanding the service area, highway speeds.. this took Waymo time to do, and it'll be the same with Robotaxi.

On the other hand, Tesla needs to improve on their transparency. Waymo has accumulated 200 million miles, and when they crash it's seems the information made available is much more detailed. Waymo is just as at risk of public persecution, and lawsuit as Tesla is, yet they don't seem to hide their data to nearly the extent that Tesla does.

Self driving cars are a reality, the only question now is how much appetite the general public has for it. Here in this subreddit, we don't need to argue back and forth anymore. Here's hoping finally the numbers can do the talking.

Before the Oct 2024 cybercab “unveil”, it was actually advertised as a launch of the autonomous ride-hailing network. Now after the fact we settled that 2024 wasn’t a launch.

Then we had a 2025 robotaxi launch but it wasn’t really a launch.

Now we just had a 2026 cybercab launch and if you look into it, it’s suspiciously far from a launch. No official event stream. Limited guest list. No way to purchase the product. No official specs list. No full approval from regulators. Does anyone even know how many units exist?

Don’t take my word for it, my claims are easily verifiable.

Will we have another launch every single year? What does “launch” even mean anymore?

• Hyundai Motor Co. will start delivering electric Ioniq 5 SUVs to Waymo to serve as robotaxis on the company’s ride-hailing platform, the automaker announced at its Aug. 26 investor day event.
• The vehicles will enable the international expansion of robotaxi services as early as 2027 and will be built at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia using a local supply chain. The Waymo robotaxis will leverage the automaker’s expertise in manufacturing, design, software and finance, per the release. 
• Hyundai will also make use of robotaxi-ready Ioniq 5 SUVs as part of its Motional joint venture, which plans to deploy the vehicles later this year as fully driverless.

1M unsupervised miles already!

I'm guessing this is just promo pricing but it's cheaper than I expected