Greetings! We’ve just released the preliminary agenda for Ride AI, which you should check out here.

On tap, we have an amazing group of speakers, including CEOs Amnon Shashua of Mobileye, Gill Pratt of TRI, and other top decision-makers from Waymo, Zoox, Lyft, Torc, Aurora, Kodiak, Wayve, and more. And this is only the beginning. Watch this space as we announce more speakers in the coming weeks.

What’s Ride AI? It’s an intimate gathering of top leaders in driving automation technology and related AI-empowered hardtech, taking place on April 2, 2025 at Neuehouse in Hollywood, California.

There’s a ton of excitement around the fact that this will be the first event of its kind that people will be able to take a fully driverless robotaxi to, making it the perfect opportunity to inaugurate the second chapter of this technological space. The onstage conversations will be focused on this shift, from experiments and ideas to delivering real-world realities, and how to reboot conversations with stakeholders in the public sector, capital markets, media, and beyond.

Ticket prices will be rising, so get involved now. You can also drop us a message here if you want to learn more.

Get Your Ride AI Tickets

What You Need to Know Today

In the robotaxi race, Waymo is often portrayed as the tortoise to Tesla’s hare. But when you look at the particulars of Tesla’s plan to roll out unsupervised FSD—gradual city-by-city expansion featuring remote oversight and next-gen vehicle hardware—the approach is more like tortoise 2.0, Timothy B. Lee notes.

Of course the main difference with Tesla’s driverless taxis is that the company doesn’t own the capex or opex, the drivers do. So maybe the best point of comparison isn’t Waymo but Uber.

In an Stratechery interview, Dara Khosrowshahi says he thinks Tesla and Uber can play nice if/when unsupervised FSD ships: “Ultimately, if Tesla puts their cars on our network, we already have 150,000 drivers who are driving Teslas, and if they get FSD, they’d love to plug it into Uber as well. Then, that Tesla that is both on Uber, and by the way, they could be both on Uber and the network, that is going to create much, much more revenue. Ultimately, that’ll increase the value of the Tesla so that the residual value of that car improves, and if they don’t do that, there’ll be some other OEM that does it.”

Meanwhile Lyft CEO David Risher says the company is focusing on their core competencies (existing marketplace with fleet management capabilities) rather than trying to build AV tech themselves. He also pushed back on reports that Waymo is eating into the demand for human-driven rides in places like San Francisco and Phoenix, without offering any evidence.

20% of GM Super Cruise users pay for a subscription once their free trial ends.

Video: BYD’s new automated parallel parking tool.

AVride is deploying sidewalk delivery bots in Jersey City; Serve Robotics is doing the same in Miami.

Last-mile logistics platform nuVizz has unveiled Vizzard, an AI-powered assistant designed to optimize delivery operations through automated route planning and intelligent data integration.

On the unit economics of suburban drone delivery: “Think low-cost airline mentality in operations... one of our people will do between 25 and 30 deliveries per hour”

Waymo is considering adding a membership program, featuring potential perks like cash back and discounted rides, to lock in its passionate user base (h/t Harry Campbell).

How China could use Tesla FSD approval as a bargaining chip in a trade war with the US.

Stellantis has developed its first “hands-free, eyes-off” ADAS system called STLA AutoDrive, but is holding off on launching it due to limited market demand and regulatory hurdles. The L3 system will initially work at speeds under 37 mph and is designed primarily for stop-and-go traffic scenarios.

Honda’s $60B merger with Nissan is history. According to sources at Reuters, Nissan’s “pride and insufficient alarm about its predicament” killed the deal. Who will rescue the struggling carmaker now? Maybe Foxconn.

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