Self-driving truck startup Waabi is teaming up with Uber on robotaxis

Waabi, a Toronto-based self-driving trucking startup, is expanding its portfolio to include robotaxis. And it brings Uber along for the ride.

Raquel Urtasun, former chief scientist at Uber’s advanced technologies group, which is no longer in existence, Guaranteeing establishment in to be more”An AI-focused approach“For self-driving vehicles. This approach initially focused on trucking, with Waabi using its proprietary software to automate driving on commercial delivery routes in Texas. But with self-driving trucks becoming a much tougher problem than originally thought, and robo-taxis seemingly having a moment of their own, Waabi is now shifting its focus to self-driving ride-sharing vehicles as a demonstration of the versatility of “physical AI.”

To that end, Wabi has raised $1 billion, including $750 million in an oversubscribed third funding round led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners, along with additional capital from Uber is particularly associated with the development of robotaxis. As part of the agreement, Wabi plans to publish minimum Of the 25,000 robotaxis powered by its technology on the Uber platform. In an interview, Urtasun emphasized that the number of robotaxis is the floor, not the ceiling.

“A very huge partnership as you can see here,” she said. “It really brings the next level of scale to the robotaxi market.”

This is a bold announcement from a startup that has yet to validate its self-driving trucks for commercial operation, let alone deploy a single robotaxi. Urtasun declined to specify the deployment timeline, target markets, or the vehicle platform that Waabi will use in its robotic cars. However, it claimed that the same technology that Waabi uses to automate trucking could also be applied to robotaxis. In trucking, vehicles move to specific locations for loading and unloading – similar to passenger pick-ups and drop-offs. She argues that many of the operational behaviors needed for robot vehicles are already part of the current WABI system.

Wabi is not the first autonomous vehicle operator to focus on robotics. Not surprisingly, given the growing excitement around Waymo’s early successes, investors are putting more money into startups with a robotaxi plan.

To be sure, it was once expected that self-driving trucks would precede robotaxis and personally owned self-driving vehicles in mass adoption, considering that highways are vastly less complex than city streets and residential streets. But self-driving truck operators have faced technology and regulatory hurdles, delaying their public debut. Some companies like Getting started on the trucks, TuSimpleand the siteThey have stopped working, while others have done so Reduce plans to deploy self-driving trucks As timelines stretched into the future and funding dried up.

But Urtasun strongly rejects the idea that trucking has become too difficult. She explains that Wabi’s trucking product is already highly capable, but the company made a deliberate decision not to launch fully driverless operations on public roads until the platform is fully validated. Unlike competitors who deployed retrofit systems, Wabi chose to wait for a purpose-built and validated platform In partnership with Volvo.

However, it recognizes that robotaxis present new challenges, including the inherent risks of accepting passengers in your vehicles and increased liability considerations. She declined to share key details about Waabi’s tie-up with Uber, including who will own the robo-taxi fleet — though she stressed that Waabi sees itself as a technology provider, not necessarily a fleet owner or manager.

These aspects of the robo-taxi business will likely be led by Uber, which has struck deals with more than a dozen autonomous vehicle operators around the world. As a former chief technology officer at Uber, Urtasun has inside knowledge of what the transportation giant expects.

However, Wabi will face a variety of headwinds, whether from regulators, suppliers or Uber itself. Of course, Uber was once heavily invested in the idea of ​​building its own self-driving cars. But the project exploded spectacularly, with allegations of theft of trade secrets and patent infringement, as well as a 2018 crash that killed a pedestrian in Arizona. The new funding will help Wabi in the near term, but once her robot is up and running, and begins to face all the complexities and pitfalls of urban life, all bets are off.