Tesla Is Talking to Austin About Launching Driverless Fleet

Welcome to the Ride AI Newsletter, your weekly digest of news and intelligence at intersection of technology and transportation.

ICYMI: The Ride AI summit is heading to Hollywood, Los Angeles on April 2nd, 2025 for an exclusive day of networking and insights with CEOs and other leaders in auto(nomy), robotics, and tech. With programming curated by Edward Niedermeyer and Timothy B. Lee, you can bet you’ll be surrounded by brilliant people doing interesting things wherever you turn.

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What You Need to Know Today

Honda and Nissan announced plans to merge in 2026, as the two Japanese companies look to gain a competitive edge in EVs and ADAS amid a rapidly changing industry. But big auto has a long history of failed consolidation. “A merger could help Honda and Nissan develop electric cars faster and at lower cost — in theory. But other companies have struggled to achieve such gains in practice, often because the priorities of companies working together often shift and diverge. Ford Motor and Volkswagen teamed up a few years ago to work on electric vehicles and autonomous driving technology. But the companies shut down their self-driving car business and reaped few benefits from collaborating on electric vehicles.”

New pod: The AV trucking company Aurora is spending the final hours of 2024 getting ready to start hauling freight without humans on board, a long-awaited milestone. On the eve of this launch, our host Timothy B. Lee caught up with co-founder Sterling Anderson about the long road of technological innovation that led here. Listen in.

NHTSA is opening a new path for driverless cars to hit American streets en masse. The agency’s proposed “AV STEP” framework would eliminate the 2,500-vehicle cap on autonomous vehicles without traditional controls (such as steering wheels and pedals), and in exchange, companies would need to share substantially more safety data with regulators. Many in the industry will probably greet this compromise as good news, but not everyone. Elon Musk is already pressing the incoming Trump administration to roll back existing AV reporting mandates, setting up a potential clash over industry oversight.

And the feds aren’t giving the AV industry everything on their wishlist this holiday season. FMSCA rejected Waymo and Aurora’s bid to swap traditional roadside emergency markers for cab-mounted beacons on driverless trucks. While the companies argued these high-tech alternatives could match the safety of conventional reflective signs and flares—which require a human to place them on the ground—regulators weren’t convinced. (Aurora cofounder Sterling Anderson recently explained why the warning triangle exemption is so pivotal on our podcast.)

Tesla has been talking to Austin officials about launching a driverless fleet in the city since May. Elon Musk said at the Cybercab event in Octobeer that the company would roll out its driverless technology to customers in California and Texas by 2025. Targeting Texas first makes sense given Tesla’s acrimonious relationship with CA DMV and past aversion to sharing FSD data.

Chinese EV manufacturer BYD has acquired a stake in DJI’s automotive subsidiary to enhance its self-driving capabilities.

After a long and tumultuous road, the autonomous trucking startup TuSimple has officially rebranded as Create AI and pivoted to gaming tech.

We don’t spend much time talking about autonomy on the high seas in this newsletter, but this new bulletin that DARPA completed its first autonomous refueling for the US Navy merits a mention.

Will 2025 be the year that Waymo is finally allowed to do pick-ups and drop-offs at San Francisco International Airport? With mapping permits in the works, the company is one step closer to its gaining access to its dream route.

Meanwhile DHL is testing driverless vehicles for baggage handling at London’s Heathrow Airport. And Hong Kong Airport says passengers will be able to take autonomous shuttles by late next year.

Speaking of flying, Wing and DoorDash have launched drone delivery in Dallas-Fortworth, allowing customers to order food directly from two shopping centers at speeds of 65mph and cruising altitudes of 150 feet. Meanwhile many are wondering, when will Prime Air’s drone delivery network be ready for primetime?

Reilly Brennan caught this interesting bit of IP news in his excellent FoT newsletter: Apple filed an application for an autonomous driving and routing patent months after the Apple Car project was reportedly shut down.

China’s Guangdong province, which includes Shenzhen, will permit robocars to travel freely between cities. Hong Kong and Macau are expected to join the agreement soon.

A new insurance study by Swiss Re finds Waymos provide higher safety performance than human drivers. “Swiss Re concluded that robotaxi vehicles with Waymo Driver demonstrated better safety performance compared to human-driven vehicles, achieving an 88% reduction in property damage claims and a 92% reduction in bodily injury claims.”

Avride has been given the greenlight by Japanese regulators to deploy delivery robots.

Alex Roy set a new Cannonball coast-to-coast record using Tesla FSD. “Autonomy needs its Nurburgring, and the Cannonball Run is now the Nurburgring of autonomy: a grand, repeatable, public spectacle anyone can understand.”