Waymo is late to the game

Over the last two editions, Jacquard’s Loom took a historical view of changing supply chains for automobile manufacturing using a 6-lens model. I used the same model to try to predict how things might change in the future with the data, and intelligence layers becoming way more important in the future, with EVs and autonomy becoming more prominent.

Autonomous passenger vehicles have seen a surge in adoption over the last 24 months, with Waymos zipping around in San Francisco. Even then, AVs are a very small portion of the overall market right now, and in fact, they are not the first, when it comes to autonomous vehicles across different industries.

I had the privilege to explore the adoption of autonomous vehicles in other industries briefly in a guest post I did for Andrew Miller’s Changing Lanes newsletter. Changing Lanes is:

where we explore how innovation in transport and artificial intelligence—particularly vehicle automation—will reshape our society, and how we can guide that transformation toward better outcomes.

I have come to know Andrew over the last year, as a motivated, smart, opinionated, and experienced writer, thinker and doer in the autonomy space. Andrew has written a very well regarded book, and has written op-eds in multiple publications like the Washington Post. One thing, I love about Andrew is that he is not afraid to express his opinion, and is willing to experiment with different ways to get his opinions out there.

The guest post is about how Waymos (and autonomous passenger vehicles) are late to the autonomy game compared to other fields like mining, airport security, and agriculture. The post goes into reasons why and focuses on four aspects, namely operating environments, liability regimes, unit economics, and operational maturity. Autonomous vehicles are catching up all four aspects, which were much easier for these other fields

I hope you enjoy this guest post, and most importantly do not forget to subscribe to Andrew’s newsletter, or get a copy of his book.