Nuro’s Perspective: The Benefits of Being a ‘Second Mover’ in the Robotaxi Market

Waymo currently dominates the robotaxi market, boasting a fleet of over 3,000 autonomous vehicles operating in at least 10 cities across the United States. However, several competitors, including Tesla, Zoox, Avride, and Motional, are eager to close the gap. But what if being the runner-up has its advantages?

Nuro, a delivery robot company founded by former members of Google’s self-driving car initiative, believes it has a solid chance to take that second spot. After shifting its focus from delivery to robotaxis in 2024, Nuro secured a partnership with Uber and Lucid to roll out tens of thousands of robotaxis nationwide, attracting hundreds of millions in investment from Uber along the way. The company plans to kick off its service in San Francisco later this year and recently received its first of several necessary permits to launch.

According to Dave Ferguson, cofounder and co-CEO of Nuro, the pace at which Waymo is expanding could actually work in Nuro’s favor. The successes and setbacks of Waymo provide valuable insights for Nuro’s engineers, allowing them to reflect and ask, “Could we have done better?”

“There’s significant value in adopting a classic second mover strategy,” Ferguson noted in a recent discussion. “We have immense respect for Waymo… In instances where they face challenges, we’re using those moments to test our own systems and ensure they perform in a way we can be proud of.”

Ferguson’s respect for Waymo is understandable, given his background with the Google project that eventually evolved into Waymo, alongside Nuro cofounder Jiajun Zhu. The duo left Google in 2016 to establish Nuro, initially as a delivery service and now as a contender in the robotaxi arena. Nuro also aims to license its autonomous driving tech to other companies, including automakers interested in advanced driver-assist systems, although no deals have been announced yet.

Nuro may be entering the robotaxi scene a bit late, as it focused on grocery deliveries while Waymo was already transporting passengers. However, Ferguson argues that Nuro’s technology can easily adapt to the robotaxi model, even if they currently lack passenger experience.

This is where his “second mover” theory shines. Unlike Waymo, which had to navigate numerous operational hurdles firsthand, Nuro believes it can learn from Waymo’s experiences before launching its own service.

Ferguson envisions Nuro’s robotaxi service being highly functional right from the start. While some features, like freeway driving, might be introduced later, the initial launch won’t be a slow rollout of limited scenarios. However, he clarified that they won’t be covering “the entire South Bay on day one.”

“The goal is for this to be a genuinely useful service from day one,” he stated. “We’re not just going to start with protected intersections and gradually add more complex scenarios. We aim for a broad operational design domain from the outset.”

The collaboration between Uber, Lucid, and Nuro is noteworthy, as it combines a rideshare platform, an automaker, and an autonomous vehicle startup. In this partnership, Nuro develops the sensing and computing technology, working closely with Lucid to integrate it into the Lucid Gravity SUV on the production line. This means the vehicles leave the factory equipped with Level 4 autonomy, which Uber then operates and manages, including the necessary infrastructure for the service.

Uber will also oversee remote assistance for the vehicles. Recently, remote assistance has faced scrutiny, with some lawmakers urging transparency from companies like Waymo regarding their use of offsite workers to monitor vehicles. Ferguson emphasized that this has led to misconceptions about remote workers actively controlling robotaxis. Instead, they provide guidance and support when the vehicles encounter difficulties.

“The common perception is that remote assistance means someone is driving the car from a dark room like a video game,” he explained. “That’s quite different from how remote assistance typically functions.”

Nuro’s long-term vision is to develop the most advanced AI driving system possible, with applications extending beyond robotaxis to include delivery services. Ferguson believes that Nuro’s experience in the field allows the company to leverage lessons learned from older, rule-based machine learning systems alongside current end-to-end learning models that promote a more natural driving style. He sees this legacy as crucial as the industry shifts toward more AI-driven solutions.

“You can think of this as a sanity check to ensure our system maintains safe distances from pedestrians and other vehicles while adhering to traffic laws,” he said.

He acknowledged that public trust in robotaxis is currently low, particularly concerning edge cases where autonomous vehicles may disrupt traffic. Nuro plans to adopt a transparent approach similar to Waymo’s, sharing driving statistics to build trust with users.

“The more evidence we can provide showing that Nuro, Uber, and Lucid deliver a product that is significantly safer and better for our streets than human-driven vehicles, the better it is for everyone,” he said. The company is still working to find the right balance in how much detail to share, ensuring it’s understandable and relatable to the general public. However, Ferguson is optimistic about reaching that goal.