Will Tesla prove itself in Las Vegas?
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The big news this week comes from Las Vegas, where regulators have approved permits for Tesla, Waymo and a partnership between Uber, Zoox and Motional to collectively operate 7,000 robotaxis. 5,000 of those permits are just for Tesla, whose rather meager robotaxi trials in Texas and Florida have prompted skepticism that Elon Musk’s Lidar-free vision for autonomous driving can compete. Well, Vegas is Musk’s big shot to prove the haters wrong.
Plus, the Iran War has driven consumers towards EVs everywhere except America, Consumer Reports comes out against e-scooters and Amazon dramatically expands its drone delivery footprint. Finally, what’s up with all of the dead shopping malls littered across the U.S.?
What you need to know
What happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas: Regulators approve permits for Waymo, Tesla and Uber to operate up to 7,000 robotaxis in Clark County, home of Sin City. Tesla alone was granted permission to roll out 5,000 driverless vehicles, while the other two each got OKed to operate 1,000. At full rollout, 7,000 is a very big number: more than twice the number of old school taxi cabs in Vegas.
It’s curious that Tesla was granted a higher threshold than Waymo, which is already operating robotaxis at scale. The automaker nevertheless concedes it is unlikely to actually operate 5,000 vehicles next year; a representative suggests 2,500 is more likely. That would still be an enormous deployment far greater than anything Tesla has mustered in other markets. The company’s hesitance to move beyond small-scale operations – mostly with human supervisors on board – has some wondering whether Tesla’s “vison-only” autonomous system is not ready for the big leagues.
Robotaxis hailed through the Uber platform will be provided by Amazon’s Zoox or Hyundai’s Motional. This will make Vegas the first city in the U.S. where Uber and Waymo are directly competing in the robotaxi market as they shift from being collaborators to rivals.
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Amazon expands drone operation: Two days after Uber unveils a big drone delivery plan, Amazon announces that it is dramatically expanding its own drone delivery operation. Amazon Prime Air will deliver in 500 cities and towns in the U.S. by the end of the year, a sixfold increase of its current footprint.
America falls further behind on EVs: The spike in gas prices in response to the Iran War has prompted a surge in EV sales in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Although total total car sales have dropped in China, in the midst of an economic slowdown, EVs now account for 60% of new vehicle purchases. The one outlier is the U.S., where EV sales are down 22% from last year following Congress’s elimination of the EV tax credit.
Consumer Reports comes out against scooters: The venerable consumer magazine says that it tested 13 electric scooters and doesn’t recommend any of them due to high risk of injury. The fact that the user is standing, rather than sitting, “makes e-scooters exceptionally dangerous when you hit something, particularly at high speed, because you have a higher center of mass and may be more likely to fall headfirst.”
What we’re reading
Why are there so many dead malls? Urbanist writer Nolan Gray describes why so many dead or near-dead malls are taking up valuable real estate in the U.S. and not being redeveloped into something more useful or vibrant. In many cases, argues Gray, the problem is the veto power granted to anchor tenants like Nordstrom or Sears over the mall’s management.
