• Waymo, Tesla and Antitrust.

  • Jan 31 2025
  • Length: 14 mins
  • Podcast

Waymo, Tesla and Antitrust.

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  • Waymo expands, Tesla goes FSD in June and Uber faces the FTC. LegalRideshare breaks it down. WAYMO EXPANDS TO MORE CITIES Waymo is entering more cities. TechCrunch reported: Waymo plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in 10 new cities this year, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego, according to The Verge. However, this doesn't mean the company will launch commercial operations in any of these cities — or even test them in autonomous mode. Waymo told The Verge it will send less than 10 AVs to each city, where they will be manually driven. Waymo is already operating a commercial robotaxi service in three cities — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — with plans to launch in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami this year. The Alphabet-owned company has not confirmed if it will launch a robotaxi service in any of the cities it tests in this year. Usually, Waymo sends a limited human-driven fleet to test across a broad range of city and driving conditions to get a sense of how its system adapts to new environments. TESLA LAUNCHES FSD IN JUNE Tesla is launching unsupervised driving in June. The Verge reported: Tesla will launch an “unsupervised, no one in the car” robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, Elon Musk said in an earnings call Wednesday. The vehicles will be part of a fleet owned by Tesla, and not customer's personal vehicles. (Musk has previously promised Tesla customers would be able to add their own vehicles to a “Tesla Network” for ridehailing.) They will be available for paid trips, and will arrive without anyone behind the wheel, Musk claimed. In its letter to shareholders, Tesla said its customers have cumulatively driven over 3 billion miles on Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — the company's advanced driver system — as of January. Tesla says that FSD (Supervised) is a precursor to fully autonomous vehicles, but the company warns customers that they need to continue to pay attention to the road since the system does not make the vehicle autonomous. The company also claims to have increased AI training compute by over 400 percent in 2024. UBER/LYFT FACES FTC Uber and Lyft have to respond to the FTC. Bloomberg reported: The US Federal Trade Commission is probing whether Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. illegally coordinated to limit driver pay in New York City, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. So-called civil investigative demands, which are similar to subpoenas, were sent to both companies in the final days of the Biden administration. The demands compel the companies to turn over information within 30 days about an agreement with New York City officials over how drivers are compensated. Uber and Lyft entered into the agreement with New York City in July 2024 to reduce ride-share lockouts that had resulted in reduced driver pay. Gold, the Uber spokesperson, said there was never “an agreement or deal” with Lyft itself. “We were neither conspiring nor was our goal to limit driver pay,” he said. The FTC isn't investigating New York City officials. But a key focus of the inquiry is to what extent city officials helped in crafting the agreement and under what legal authority, the FTC said in the memo. The companies may have some defense because of the involvement of New York City's government, but more investigation is needed to substantiate that, according to the memo. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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