Waymo wants its driverless cars in Europe, but it could face challenges

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Alphabet’s Waymo hopes to launch the first US self-driving taxi service this year in Phoenix, Arizona, and potentially San Francisco, California. Depending on how these test runs go, Waymo could end up a household name in America. 

Now, we’ve learned that Waymo’s CEO also hopes to expand his company’s driverless taxis to Europe, though it could face stiff competition from local, more mainstream car brands.

John Krafcik, speaking at the Automotive News Europe Congress in Turin, Italy, told the audience that, “There is an opportunity for us at Waymo to experiment here in Europe, with different products and maybe even with different go-to-market strategies,” Reuters first reported. 

Last Friday, Waymo tried out its Fiat Chrysler (FCA) self-driving vans on a private racing track in Italy to impress FCA executives. 

Waymo’s first trip abroad! Thanks @FCAgroup for having us at Balocco Proving Ground in Italy where we gave our first rides outside of the U.S. with no one in the driver seat! pic.twitter.com/wYowSBJZnqJune 6, 2018

“For the first time we brought Waymo technology and demonstrated true Level 4 (autonomy), no humans in the front row, fully autonomous, no safety-net driving, right here in Italy – it was amazing,” Krafcik said.

Waymo executives, including Krafcik, have begun spending more time in the European Union in recent months, which the CEO said was to help the company better understand how the EU’s self-driving regulations differ from US state laws. 

While Waymo currently holds the crown of most reliable self-driving car, it doesn’t enjoy the same name recognition in Europe that it has in the United States. 

And its parent company doesn’t have the best reputation in the EU, having been hit with a €2.4 billion antitrust lawsuit and a €3.7 billion data privacy lawsuit in the past couple of years. 

“It’s probably safe to say the Waymo brand wouldn’t be as strong as some other existing incumbent brands that are already strong in Europe,” Krafcik said on stage. He admitted that, “It’s possible we will take a very different approach here than we would in the US.”

John Krafcik (green shirt) with Waymo employees in Italy this week | Credit: John Krafcik, Twitter

(Image: © Twitter / John Krafcik)

The most likely solution would be to partner with another, more mainstream brand to put Waymo self-driving cars on European roads. 

Waymo has a strong US distribution partnership with FCA and Jaguar; manufacturing began on 62,000 Fiat Chrysler minivans and 20,000 Jaguar I-Pace SUVs earlier this year. But, both partnerships exclusively cover US production, and Krafcik has made no indication that Waymo would partner with either for its European goals. 

One strong potential candidate is its self-driving rival, Uber. Its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, revealed last week that Uber had begun courting Waymo’s business, hoping to bring its driverless cars into Uber’s self-driving fleet. 

It’s entirely possible that Uber, an official EU taxi service, could provide a means for Waymo to jump into the European market. 

Playing catch-up with tough competition

Waymo is far from the only self-driving company with goals for European expansion. 

It’s not even the only American one. Ford, designer of pizza-delivering self-driving vehicles, began testing its driverless car AI in Europe last year, and aims to launch its taxi service by 2021.

But Waymo’s toughest rivals may come from European car manufacturers that enjoy both name recognition and brand loyalty from the region’s residents. 

VW’s self-parking car at Hamburg Airport | Credit: VW

German automaker VW launched Moia in 2016, an Uber-rivalling taxi service focused on creating self-driving cars and electric shuttles to ease traffic and reduce accidents. Volkswagen already began testing self-parking cars at Hamburg Airport this year, and it’s reportedly partnered with Apple for self-driving employee shuttles. 

BMW also began production on its self-driving car, iNext, in 2016, and aims to launch its own self-driving taxi fleet by 2021. In April, it opened a new R&D facility and campus north of Munich, Germany, where 1,800 employees will work on BMW’s rapidly expanding fleet. 

BMW’s partner, Amber Mobility, uses BMW’s i3 electric SUV for its self-driving fleet, and plans to launch a Zipcar-like service this year in the Netherlands. By 2021, Amber Mobility plans to launch a fully driverless vehicle. 

And, over in Stockholm, Sweden, Volvo is testing driverless cars and buses. 

With so many planned services set to launch in Europe within three years—many of which will be backed by big car brands like BMW and Ford—Waymo and Krafcik are likely wise to seek a European partner. Together, Waymo and its business ally will have a better chance of flourishing in such a crowded field. 

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GM Cruise just got a huge investment to accelerate driverless car development

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SoftBank, the company behind Boston Dynamics’ door-opening robots and a real-life Transformer, is investing billions into a more mainstream AI industry: driverless cars. 

Specifically, SoftBank Vision Fund, Softbank’s investment fund group, will bankroll $2.2 billion into GM Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving department, in return for a 20% stake, GM announced today in a statement. 

SoftBank will withhold $1.35 billion of its promised investment until GM’s autonomous vehicles are “ready for commercial deployment.” GM is hoping to launch its fleet of self-driving cars sometime next year. 

GM will also invest $1.1 billion of its own assets into GM Cruise. 

“Our Cruise and GM teams together have made tremendous progress over the last two years,” GM CEO Mary Barra said. “Teaming up with SoftBank adds an additional strong partner as we pursue our vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”

GM’s Chevy Volt is its first choice for adding self-driving tech | Credit: Chevrolet

SoftBank’s investment will likely help GM in launching a pilot test program of self-driving cars in Manhattan sometime this year. 

Each of GM’s electric, self-driving Chevy Volts will be insured for $5 million for any potential accidents caused by GM’s AI. 

Forbes reports that GM and SoftBank’s partnership will span seven years. Michael Ronen, a managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, told Forbes that seven years, “is a good benchmark for what we think is the runway for this technology to get at least close to maturity.”

SoftBank also spent $7 billion on a 15% stake in Uber, CNN Tech reported last year. Uber has its own self-driving ambitions, but after a high-profile, fatal accident in Arizona earlier this year, the company has suspended most of its self-driving testing on public roads. 

Another major player in the self-driving race

GM has the second-best safety record of self-driving disengagements after Waymo, Google’s self-driving division, and SoftBank’s major investment could help the Detroit-based manufacturer compete with its Silicon Valley rival. 

Just after GM’s announcement, Waymo revealed its plans to buy 62,000 Fiat Chrysler minivans with self-driving tech built-in, as part of the company’s plan to launch its self-driving ride-hailing service in Arizona later this year. 

Coincidentally, Waymo has also entered into discussions with Uber to lease out some of its cars to Uber’s self-driving taxi service. It’s unclear whether SoftBank could look to torpedo these talks, or encourage Uber to try out GM’s cars instead. 

Waymo’s Pacifica Hybrid minivan | Credit: Waymo

What we really want to know is whether GM plans to sell self-driving Chevy Volts from its fleet to consumers directly, or if it will look to start its own driverless ride-sharing or rental service instead. 

Uber released a joint statement with other ride-sharing companies earlier this year stating that consumers shouldn’t be able to buy their own autonomous vehicles. 

If GM chooses to sell self-driving cars and Uber lobbies against it, SoftBank could end up awkwardly backing both sides of the feud. But, until GM announces more concrete plans, much of this is mere speculation. 

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