The Self-Driving Startup Nobody Saw Coming | E2289

Summary

The episode features interviews with Alex Kendall of Wayve and Raquel Urtasun of Waabi, two autonomous driving startups focused on end-to-end AI and world models. They discuss the transition from scientific risk to engineering risk, partnerships with Uber and OEMs like Nissan and Volvo, and the business models for deploying self-driving technology at scale. Both CEOs emphasize that while technical challenges remain, the industry is ready for deployment in the coming years.

• Wayve uses end-to-end learning and world models to generalize across driving environments.
• Wayve has partnerships with Nissan, Uber, and other automakers for consumer vehicle and robotaxi deployment.
• Waabi builds verifiable end-to-end AI with world models for trucking and robotaxis.
• Waabi partners with Volvo for trucking and Uber for robotaxis, with a minimum of 25,000 robotaxis planned.
• Both companies believe the scientific risk of self-driving is solved and only engineering and deployment risk remain.
• The hosts discuss business models including subscription-based pricing for autonomous features.
• The CEOs highlight that autonomous technology will become a must-have feature for all vehicles.
• Consumer-level L4/L5 vehicles are unlikely within three years, but robotaxis will scale sooner.