Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a special edition of Bloomberg Tech. I'm Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2: Weaimo is widely seen as leading the robotaxi race, but
Speaker 2: with competitors like Tesla on its heel, the Alphabet unit
Speaker 2: has no interest in hitting the brakes on growth. In
Speaker 2: a wide ranging interview, Weimo co CEO to Qidra Markhana
Speaker 2: talk to us about expanding into foreign markets, ongoing safety investigations,
Speaker 2: and their recent mega funding round. Let's take a listen
Speaker 2: to that conversation. Now, you've just raised sixteen billion dollars.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of money. What is it unlocked for
Speaker 2: Weimo over the next twelve twenty four months.
Speaker 3: Raising the sixteen billion dollars and at one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty six billion dollar valuation, is really a vote of confidence.
Speaker 3: I mean, this team has been heads down for a
Speaker 3: long time trying to bring this sort of scientific project
Speaker 3: into reality and at scale. And so it's a huge
Speaker 3: event of confidence not only from our majority investor, Alphabet,
Speaker 3: but also from our co lead investors Sequoia and DST
Speaker 3: and Dragonear, as well as a host of world class
Speaker 3: existing and new investors and it just allows us to
Speaker 3: continue to scale our business. Right now, we're laying the
Speaker 3: groundwork for over twenty cities in this year alone.
Speaker 2: I should point out, you know, we reported Alphabet will
Speaker 2: account for the vast majority of that sixteen billion. But
Speaker 2: it is interesting, so Quoia Capital Dst Dragonaire beyond you investors,
Speaker 2: what do we interpret from that that they came in
Speaker 2: at this stage of the company's life.
Speaker 3: I think it's important to interpret that this is an
Speaker 3: inflection point, right, Like in twenty twenty five, we quadrupled
Speaker 3: the number of trips that we are providing, so we
Speaker 3: offered fifteen million rides and we have over twenty million
Speaker 3: lifetime rides.
Speaker 4: So it's just a really important year.
Speaker 3: And now that we've launched Miami, that's across six cities,
Speaker 3: but at that time it was across five cities, and
Speaker 3: so demonstrating not only that the technology works, that we're
Speaker 3: able to drive the safety impacts that we've been focused on,
Speaker 3: you know, with when we were at one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty seven million miles, we were able to demonstrate a
Speaker 3: ninety percent that we had ninety percent fewer serious injury
Speaker 3: causing crashes or worse. That's the kind of safety output
Speaker 3: that drives us. That's our mission to be the world's
Speaker 3: most trusted driver. So coming in at this point demonstrates
Speaker 3: that consumers are adopting it, the safety case is being made.
Speaker 4: And it's just really exciting time to join the team.
Speaker 2: You set the same for expansion across twenty cities this year.
Speaker 2: Right right now, you're doing four hundred thousand paid rides
Speaker 2: a week across six cities.
Speaker 1: It's a greater scale.
Speaker 2: Than when you and I talked to more than a
Speaker 2: year ago, which seemed to be to be a time
Speaker 2: of pace. Then what's the biggest challenge of operating a
Speaker 2: robotaxi service at that new scale that you're developing.
Speaker 3: I think everything is really exciting right now, and there
Speaker 3: are many many things to be learned as we go.
Speaker 3: Right like some markets are still not open and they're
Speaker 3: really important transportation hubs around the world, like New York City, right,
Speaker 3: you know. And so we were the first company to
Speaker 3: receive a testing permit where we had driver supervision of
Speaker 3: fully autonomous testing in the city. And we believe now
Speaker 3: with Governor Hokel that we will be able to be
Speaker 3: the first company to launch a New York City a
Speaker 3: New York state. But you know this is going to
Speaker 3: be a path actually figuring out the regulatory landscape.
Speaker 2: There's something there, isn't there. City versus state, state versus ver.
Speaker 2: We will talk about it. Yeah, I got a lot
Speaker 2: of interest when I said that I was going to
Speaker 2: be speaking with you about sixteen billion dollars. A lot
Speaker 2: of money, but actually how will you use it? There's
Speaker 2: a tension between scaling operations the fleet. You know, you've
Speaker 2: got to have more cars, but also a commitment to
Speaker 2: invest in technology. And I wanted to teach you how
Speaker 2: far you've thought about how much goes into each of
Speaker 2: those buckets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so first and foremost, when we think about twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six, you know, just the year ahead of us
Speaker 3: execution execution execution, So scaling across these twenty cities that
Speaker 3: were laying the groundwork for continuing to grow our world
Speaker 3: class team is obviously super important to us. Making sure
Speaker 3: that we are continuing to cost down our hardware stack
Speaker 3: and prove out our unit economics while scaling our fleet.
Speaker 3: And so we have our fully electric ipace fleet. We
Speaker 3: are starting to introduce the OHI vehicles and then you
Speaker 3: will see the ionic fives come online and so making
Speaker 3: sure that we are investing for the long term for
Speaker 3: a sustainable business is what we're really fueding.
Speaker 2: See the ohig vehicles testing. If I am a user
Speaker 2: of the service right now, will I soon be able
Speaker 2: to actually get into an.
Speaker 3: Ohai you will this year be able to right now?
Speaker 3: We've only throughout twenty twenty five. In the beginning of
Speaker 3: this year, had employees in three cities.
Speaker 2: We just had a huge weekend here in the Bay Area,
Speaker 2: San Francisco, but Santa Clara Super Bowl. Yes, I across
Speaker 2: social media saw a lot of people reflect on their
Speaker 2: first experience in a robotaxi, some of them of course
Speaker 2: with Weimo, was that a tangible, meaningful moment for.
Speaker 1: The company recently in the town?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: What data?
Speaker 2: What evidence can we can we point to on how
Speaker 2: big a weekend?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Super Bowl is a reminder for us that Weimo
Speaker 3: is part of the fabric of the Bay Area, right
Speaker 3: Like people were able to hail rides from SFO from
Speaker 3: San Jose Airport, people were able to get to.
Speaker 4: And from the Levi Stadium.
Speaker 3: You know, we obviously did a lot of fun activations
Speaker 3: with influencers, but it's just a reminder that people are
Speaker 3: using the weimo service in every day Aaron's doctor's appointments,
Speaker 3: you know, getting kids to practice, in big life moments, weddings,
Speaker 3: picking up a child from daycare, having a baby, you know,
Speaker 3: going to the going to the hospital, pregnant, coming home
Speaker 3: from the hospital with a newborn, and then these large
Speaker 3: cultural moments, and so we've had a number of them. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we started the month with the Grammys. We had a
Speaker 3: host of activations there, then the super Bowl, and then
Speaker 3: of course we have the All Star weekend coming in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and so we're just finding this intersection of
Speaker 3: everyday life and then real enthusiasm because a lot of
Speaker 3: people came to the Bay Area for the super Bowl
Speaker 3: and we're not in their city, and it's the thing
Speaker 3: they had heard from their friends in the area. You
Speaker 3: have to check out weimo, And so we saw so
Speaker 3: many downloads.
Speaker 4: And so many happy writers while they were here.
Speaker 2: Weimo's reputation is growing globally and we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the literal expansion of your operations. But with this
Speaker 2: funding round, you know, it's a who's who of investors
Speaker 2: now on the cap table. It's a big raise at
Speaker 2: a premium valuation. How much of that is sort of
Speaker 2: setting the pieces in motion to life eventually as a
Speaker 2: public company. Is that something that you and Dmitri and
Speaker 2: the rest of the leadership plan for or is their
Speaker 2: merit staying as you are now?
Speaker 3: You know, we are just laser focused on execution, you know,
Speaker 3: building way MO to be financially responsible, operationally excellent, and
Speaker 3: then make sure we maintain the safety culture. Like that's
Speaker 3: what we're really focused on. Having this vote of confidence,
Speaker 3: as you said, not only from Alphabet, but from our
Speaker 3: three colleades from this round, and from all of the
Speaker 3: new investors who decided to join our cap table and
Speaker 3: the existing ones who doubled down on their belief that
Speaker 3: this is the right opportunity to fund. And so we
Speaker 3: just feel humbled, but also there's a lot to do.
Speaker 3: So we're just really focused on making sure that we
Speaker 3: can scale, focusing on our two first international launches, you know,
Speaker 3: London and Tokyo, and scaling across the United SCE.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the growth.
Speaker 2: A lot of people just want to understand in some
Speaker 2: of those cities where people are frustrated because the service
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, what does it take to launch in a
Speaker 2: city to go from mapping that city through to a
Speaker 2: full paid commercial service.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if the regulatory climate of a city is welcoming,
Speaker 3: then if then we can show up and map and
Speaker 3: launch in a couple of months like we did in Miami, right.
Speaker 3: You know that's a city where you know, they were
Speaker 3: welcoming and they were ready and we were ready, and
Speaker 3: so we showed up. You know, we have a fleet
Speaker 3: operating partner, and we were able to launch quite quickly
Speaker 3: after we first arrived. I think in a lot of cities,
Speaker 3: especially cities that are meaningful from a transportation perspective, we're helping,
Speaker 3: we're working engaging with policymakers. You know, we have the
Speaker 3: burden to demonstrate our safety impact. And so with one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty seven million miles in ninety percent fewer injury,
Speaker 3: serious injury causing crashes or worse, you know, we have
Speaker 3: to educate them on that kind of impact. Eighty two
Speaker 3: percent fewer airbag deployments. You know, this isn't something that
Speaker 3: any fleet based business has been able to come in
Speaker 3: and give policymakers data. So assuming that we can do
Speaker 3: that and then grow trust, and you know, we do
Speaker 3: that by partnering with organizations in markets who have been
Speaker 3: trying to.
Speaker 4: Solve road safety issues.
Speaker 3: They've been trying to expand mobility options for residents, and
Speaker 3: so we partner with them. And then obviously we work
Speaker 3: with law enforcement and first responders to train them on
Speaker 3: horror technology works.
Speaker 2: We do not yet have, although there has been progress
Speaker 2: towards just this week, a federal level framework set of rules.
Speaker 2: What do you think the direction of travel is with that?
Speaker 2: And you know, clearly if you had to deal with
Speaker 2: one set of rules and not a city by city,
Speaker 2: let alone state by state based this or case, you'd
Speaker 2: be making a bit more progress.
Speaker 1: I suppose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we think it's really important that there is a
Speaker 3: federal av standard. We've been advocating for sort of a
Speaker 3: safety case based approach because the technologies are different, and
Speaker 3: we think that the burdens should be on companies to
Speaker 3: demonstrate why you believe your technology is safe enough. We
Speaker 3: also think there should be transparency requirements. You know, people
Speaker 3: should have to demonstrate how many trips are you providing?
Speaker 4: You know, I don't right now. The balance isn't quite there.
Speaker 3: I mean, some states require a lot of reporting, some
Speaker 3: don't require as much reporting.
Speaker 4: I think the United States has.
Speaker 3: An opportunity with this technology to lead globally, and I
Speaker 3: don't think you can lead globally if it's a framework
Speaker 3: that's governed by multiple jurisdictions across the states. And it's
Speaker 3: a way to slow down the adoption of this technology
Speaker 3: not only in the US but in other markets.
Speaker 2: New York City, New York City, not necessarily New York State.
Speaker 2: A lot of people want to know what's the the
Speaker 2: roadblock there upon the expression and what's the timeline. You know,
Speaker 2: you work closely with the authorities, but that is a
Speaker 2: big potential market.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a market where you know, we're just going
Speaker 3: to have to do the work and demonstrate our safety
Speaker 3: outcomes and earn the trust and shizzle away at it
Speaker 3: over time.
Speaker 1: Do they have the rules for you to follow?
Speaker 3: They do not have rules that allow the human operator
Speaker 3: to be removed from vehicle entirely.
Speaker 1: And until that changes, and until that changes.
Speaker 3: But you know, there is an interest in doing this
Speaker 3: in the state, even outside of the city, and that
Speaker 3: gives us an opportunity to grow more fans and fans
Speaker 3: actually are calling for this in cities where our technology
Speaker 3: can't be deployed we are seeing organic campaigns spring up
Speaker 3: saying I want Weimou in my town.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: And sometimes it's you know, parents of children who will
Speaker 3: never have driver's license saying like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 3: safer alternati, let's bring it in and let's give these
Speaker 3: children independence. And so it's been really exciting for us
Speaker 3: to see people demanding it, and over time that's going
Speaker 3: to grow.
Speaker 2: Of those twenty cities that are coming this year, New
Speaker 2: York City is not one of them.
Speaker 1: Fastered in.
Speaker 2: No, that's right, that's Waimo, co CEO t Quidra Malicana.
Speaker 2: I met Ludlow, and you're listening to a special bonus
Speaker 2: episode of Bloomberg Tech. We'll have more on Weymo's future
Speaker 2: with the company's co CEO right after this. Thanks for
Speaker 2: listening to this special edition of Bloomberg Tech. I met Ludlow.
Speaker 2: Now here's more of my conversation with Weimo co ceo
Speaker 2: Tequidra Malicana.
Speaker 1: San Francisco. The Bay Area is my home.
Speaker 2: London's where I grew up, and I was studying the
Speaker 2: map of the Burroughs that you proposed to launch in
Speaker 2: and you correct me if my math is wrong. But
Speaker 2: just based on those burroughs at launch, this seems to
Speaker 2: be the biggest citywide deployment from the start that you
Speaker 2: guys will have done.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 4: It possibly, it's correct.
Speaker 3: I mean we're in the phases of figuring out the
Speaker 3: specifics around the launch and figuring out the actual framework
Speaker 3: around the launch, and so I don't want to speak
Speaker 3: to you definitively about what we're going to do.
Speaker 4: But what you're speaking to is we're.
Speaker 3: Not gated by the technology, right, and we have the
Speaker 3: appetite to scale, and we want to partner and do
Speaker 3: so safely, and we want to earn trust. So that's
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of levers there that we have
Speaker 3: to figure out how to strike the right balance and
Speaker 3: how to make sure that we're introducing it to the
Speaker 3: community both to meet the demand.
Speaker 2: And I asked because of those twenty cities to come,
Speaker 2: London is one, yes, and London is now outside of
Speaker 2: the European Union, but it's you know, it's kind of
Speaker 2: your europe launch.
Speaker 1: Yes, what was that experience like?
Speaker 2: Within London's regulatory framework and the UK's regulatory framework.
Speaker 3: They've been extremely forward leaning and interested in seeing how
Speaker 3: this technology could actually improve safety on their roadways. And
Speaker 3: that's where I think, you know, we find a sweet
Speaker 3: spot when people are less sort of complacent about the
Speaker 3: status quo. And I think there's a lot of complacency
Speaker 3: about road depths forty thousand or one point two million globally,
Speaker 3: and when there isn't, I think people are actively interested
Speaker 3: in solutions and then they want to figure out, of course,
Speaker 3: what are the things they need to think through and learn.
Speaker 2: Well, pricing, for one, like London has take the Bus, Yes,
Speaker 2: London has take the Tube. London is prepared to sort
Speaker 2: of pay for a robot taxi service that's equivalent to
Speaker 2: a human driven cab Black Cab in London or Uber
Speaker 2: and left.
Speaker 3: Yes, I yes, people are there's you know, obviously before
Speaker 3: we go in, we do a lot of polling, We
Speaker 3: meet with a lot of residents as well as advocates,
Speaker 3: and people.
Speaker 4: Are people want safe private spaces.
Speaker 3: It adds to their day versus becoming time that they
Speaker 3: lose in the day, and so it's a you know,
Speaker 3: the thing that's been most exciting is once we introduce
Speaker 3: the way most service into a citiescape, people discover things
Speaker 3: they didn't think they could have, like that hour a
Speaker 3: day in the morning, and that by yourself to get
Speaker 3: something done.
Speaker 4: People have just sacrificed it. Yes, and whether that's on.
Speaker 3: Transit or whether that's it doesn't matter, and we're not
Speaker 3: you know, people want to take transit. That's great because
Speaker 3: you can also sit there, just can't sit there maybe
Speaker 3: until your call on quiet. And so this is something
Speaker 3: that we're hearing from writers all the time. I didn't
Speaker 3: know that I needed this the way that I needed that.
Speaker 2: Asia Pacific is also somewhere that is it varies by country,
Speaker 2: but that robot taxis are embraced. You are looking very
Speaker 2: closely at Japan. Yes, what do you see in the
Speaker 2: Japanese market? Of course, you're very closely ligned with Toyota
Speaker 2: as a partner, you know, almost a national champion for
Speaker 2: them in the automotive space. Does your hope of launching
Speaker 2: their go beyond Toyota? Is it in nate by Toyota?
Speaker 2: And again, we have a lot of viewers in that
Speaker 2: country who just want to know when.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, When we first thought about Tokyo Japan, we
Speaker 3: thought about Tokyo right, And when we first thought about Tokyo,
Speaker 3: we decided to partner with Neon Kotsu and go. And
Speaker 3: that's because that, you know, the cab are such an
Speaker 3: integral part of life there culturally as well culturally exactly.
Speaker 3: And so what that's allowed us to do is we
Speaker 3: have a fleet of vehicles there and the drivers of
Speaker 3: those vehicles are part of that partnership. You know, they're
Speaker 3: collecting the data for us, and so they're like helping
Speaker 3: to usher in this change. There will still be cabs
Speaker 3: for a long time, and there will be an introduction
Speaker 3: of autonomous vehicles, and so finding partners, like you said,
Speaker 3: national champions who can help us navigate not only are
Speaker 3: the regulatory climate, but who already have that trust of
Speaker 3: riders and who can help us educate riders that this
Speaker 3: isn't like something they are not welcoming. It's actually something
Speaker 3: they're quite excited about seeing too. Become a city of
Speaker 3: the future from a transfert.
Speaker 2: That is a market where the rules exist for you
Speaker 2: to through partners or otherwise, but to charge a fair
Speaker 2: and have a real business, even if modest at first.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right, and of course it's something we've helped shape.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: You know, there's most places contemplated drivers around the world,
Speaker 3: right I mean that's the way laws, whether it's fifty
Speaker 3: years ago or one hundred years ago. I mean they
Speaker 3: were sort of written to regulate automobiles, and automobiles were
Speaker 3: presumed to be driven by people. And so most places
Speaker 3: we have to think through what needs to change in
Speaker 3: the laws, and then if people are willing to work
Speaker 3: with us on that, then we work with them to
Speaker 3: change it.
Speaker 4: And so in Japan we have a path forward.
Speaker 2: Around the world, the sort of robotaxi race is framed
Speaker 2: in US companies against Chinese technology companies, right.
Speaker 1: I think this is.
Speaker 2: Something that Weymo and some of Weimo's executives have been
Speaker 2: kind of candid about this past week in testimony. How
Speaker 2: do you see that playing out you For example, with Toyota,
Speaker 2: you have a partner who also in common work with
Speaker 2: Ponyai as an example. It's something you must be conscious
Speaker 2: of in markets where you want to expend outside of
Speaker 2: America in particular.
Speaker 3: Yes, in general, if there are other companies focused on
Speaker 3: autonomous driving to make roadsafer, we think that's positive, Like
Speaker 3: that is a positive thing. We should have competition around
Speaker 3: saving lives, and so that's a good thing. I think
Speaker 3: what we don't spend a lot of time thinking about
Speaker 3: is how everyone is thinking about how to pursue partnerships.
Speaker 3: Right now, we're just laser focused on our strategy. We're
Speaker 3: the only company that is offering a twenty four x
Speaker 3: seven service across six markets in the US, with ambitions
Speaker 3: to be in many more this year and launch internationally.
Speaker 3: And you know, we've driven over two hundred almost two
Speaker 3: hundred million fully autonomous miles, and we're driving over four
Speaker 3: million miles per week, and so that's if you think
Speaker 3: about it, that's over six human lifetimes every seven days.
Speaker 3: And so our driver is learning at a rapid piece.
Speaker 3: So we don't think there's anyone who's doing anything close
Speaker 3: to what we're doing, and so for us, it's just
Speaker 3: staying focused on our own ambitions.
Speaker 2: Safety, there are still concerns, and in January in particular,
Speaker 2: there's two kind of again case studies of regulatory scrutiny,
Speaker 2: right of two specific incidents. I think it's important for
Speaker 2: both of them. I take time in putting it to
Speaker 2: you and explain to you. But in the case of
Speaker 2: the Santa Monica incident, for example, a way more vehicle
Speaker 2: struck or collided with a child, but the system detected
Speaker 2: the child, it breaked sharply, and at the point that
Speaker 2: the impact was made, it was a speed of single
Speaker 2: digits miles per hourly six It had been traveling at seventeen.
Speaker 2: So in that instance the the system worked, but a
Speaker 2: probe was opened. Just would you reflect on that. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, my interpretation of what weaimos publicly stayed about
Speaker 2: this is that you actually kind of welcome the opportunity
Speaker 2: to open up the system to the regulators, let them
Speaker 2: look at it.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, first and foremost, this was a child, and
Speaker 3: we are extremely happy that she walked away from this incident,
Speaker 3: as you said, because there's you know, an investigation depending,
Speaker 3: we thought it was important to become a party to
Speaker 3: the investigation, and so we're doing that. And as we've
Speaker 3: already stated, you know, our car was traveling sixteen miles
Speaker 3: per seventeen miles per hour.
Speaker 4: We did detect her, you know.
Speaker 3: Coming between from behind a tall suv into the roadway.
Speaker 3: We heartbreaked and we made contact and at six miles
Speaker 3: an hour. And we also determined and our human equivalent
Speaker 3: model that human would not have been able to perform
Speaker 3: as our superhuman driver performed. And so this is an
Speaker 3: example we believe of exactly.
Speaker 4: Why we do what we do.
Speaker 3: We want to make roads safer, and we welcome the
Speaker 3: opportunity to cooperate with the NTSB and this investigation.
Speaker 2: Separately, safety investigators are looking at the issue of how
Speaker 2: the WEIMO interacts with parked school buses. This seems to
Speaker 2: be sort of a separate technical challenge. And what is
Speaker 2: that about. Why is it that the weaiymos system has
Speaker 2: to I guess struggles with is the is the headline
Speaker 2: that came out, but with a parked vehicle of that
Speaker 2: size in a school zone of course, where you have
Speaker 2: mixed foot traffic of children in particular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, first and foremost, with safety
Speaker 3: being our priority, how we perform around school buses and
Speaker 3: children is a top priority for our company. You know,
Speaker 3: we've already addressed this situation with a software release, which
Speaker 3: is really important to us.
Speaker 4: But also we partnered with the US.
Speaker 3: An independent school district, Yes, to look at data they
Speaker 3: have so we can make sure that we are learning
Speaker 3: from what they have. You know, their data obviously would
Speaker 3: be more based on human driven vehicles, but still having
Speaker 3: that opportunity to learn is really important to us. And
Speaker 3: then once again, we have agreed with the NTSB to
Speaker 3: be a party to this investigation because we think it's
Speaker 3: important for us to understand for them to understand what
Speaker 3: we're seeing, because we also have a lot of awareness
Speaker 3: around the school buses.
Speaker 2: If we call that an edge case interaction with the
Speaker 2: school bus. That software fix that you talked about, is
Speaker 2: it a total fix? In other words, there's way more
Speaker 2: believe it's now solved that technical challenge.
Speaker 3: I don't think we can think of it as a
Speaker 3: single thing, okay, and I want to be super respectful
Speaker 3: of the investigation here and so, but I don't think
Speaker 3: we should think of it as a thing because you know,
Speaker 3: there are angles, there are times they're not all parked,
Speaker 3: and so I think we should let the investigation play
Speaker 3: out and then happy to talk to you afterwards.
Speaker 2: There was a big sort of technological development which was
Speaker 2: with GENI three, you know, the use of simulation. How
Speaker 2: much has that kind of accelerated that the technology development
Speaker 2: side of what Weimo's doing of late.
Speaker 3: I think it's really exciting for us and something that
Speaker 3: we continue to partner with the research teams. But really
Speaker 3: our acceleration hasn't been dependent on.
Speaker 2: That WEIMO has always talked about safety in the context
Speaker 2: of redundancy. Right, it's a multisensor suite around the vehicle, camera, vision, lider, radar,
Speaker 2: Tesla's approach, and they are at much smaller scale, especially
Speaker 2: in the vehicles that no longer have a safety supervisor.
Speaker 2: Is a vision only approached when you are trying to
Speaker 2: scale in all of these cities? Is the different technology
Speaker 2: Are the different technology approaches something that worry you based
Speaker 2: on your belief of the kind of redundancy that's required.
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't worry me. We have a lot of
Speaker 3: conviction about our approach.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Our approach is what allowed us in October of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty to remove the human driver from behind the wheel,
Speaker 3: and it's what's allowed us to be the only company
Speaker 3: to scale to over four hundred thousand trips per week.
Speaker 3: If you can see and smell, and taste, in touch
Speaker 3: and have all of your senses, why wouldn't you, And
Speaker 3: especially with a safety critical function, we think it is
Speaker 3: very important in the early days, especially to make sure
Speaker 3: you're taking in as much data as possible to inform
Speaker 3: the models and then to achieve the outcomes. And you know,
Speaker 3: then we can all debate. You know how you go
Speaker 3: forward from there. But this has been critical to our
Speaker 3: approach and it's allowed us to scale, and it's allowed
Speaker 3: us to achieve these safety results of ninety percent fewer
Speaker 3: serious injury causing crashes, and that is how you evaluate
Speaker 3: whether or not this approach is working. And I know
Speaker 3: there's a lot of discussion around costs, right, especially.
Speaker 2: When you think about economics at scale.
Speaker 3: The economics at scale, So of course we're laser focused
Speaker 3: on bringing these costs down. If you have to bring
Speaker 3: the cost down once you achieve the safety because how
Speaker 3: else do you actually know what the investment model for
Speaker 3: the businesses if you haven't actually achieved the safety bar.
Speaker 3: And so that's what we're focused on. Achieving the safety bar.
Speaker 3: Now we can drive the cost down because we know.
Speaker 4: What it takes.
Speaker 2: So let's end by me asking you this in case
Speaker 2: I don't speak to you for another year. In a
Speaker 2: year's time, what are the metrics by which you, as
Speaker 2: a leader in this company, will have judged success. You
Speaker 2: know you plan to launch in twenty cities, but you
Speaker 2: often point to different safety metrics and the miles driven internally.
Speaker 2: What are you going to be holding the teams to
Speaker 2: account on.
Speaker 3: By the end of twenty twenty six, we will be
Speaker 3: doing over one million trips per week, and we will
Speaker 3: be doing that across a host of.
Speaker 1: US paid trips paid trips.
Speaker 3: We only talk about paid trips, and so we will
Speaker 3: be doing over one million paid trips per week by
Speaker 3: the end of this year.
Speaker 1: And that's the measurement of success in the near tim It's.
Speaker 3: One of them, I think do having the safety culture
Speaker 3: that we've had within the company.
Speaker 4: It permeates through the data, but it starts.
Speaker 3: With how we are so disciplined about what we do
Speaker 3: and how we do it. It matters a lot to us,
Speaker 3: and so making sure that we have that culture intact,
Speaker 3: I think is the other way that we will continue
Speaker 3: to measure our success.
Speaker 2: That's way more co Ceo ta Keidra Malcana and that
Speaker 2: does it. For this special bonus episode of Bloomberg Tech.
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Speaker 1: I met Ludlow.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and this is Bloomberg