Tesla has applied to the Arizona Department of Transportation to be allowed to start testing its autonomous vehicles around the Valley. A decision from ADOT could come by the end of the month.
Waymo has been operating here for several years, and covers more than 300 square miles of the metro Phoenix area.
At the same time, Honeywell recently announced it’d tested an autonomous helicopter in Phoenix, and other companies are reportedly working on similar projects.
Andrew Hawkins, transportation editor at the Verge, joined The Show to talk about what the future of autonomous transportation in and around the Valley could be, and what makes the region so popular for this kind of technology.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: So is it surprising in any way that Tesla is looking to test out its AVs in Phoenix, given Waymo and everything else going on around here?
ANDREW HAWKINS: Yeah, I don't think it is. I think it's actually a pretty smart move from the company. I think they recognize that Phoenix has grown to become a staging ground for autonomous testing. Obviously, Waymo has been there for a number of years, and I think that Tesla is very eager to want its vehicles to be sort of viewed side by side with Waymo's vehicles, from a customer standpoint. So, I think it makes sense that they're gonna try to get a toehold in the city, so that they can eventually get there.
BRODIE: Does it make sense to try to compete with Waymo in a place like Phoenix, as opposed to maybe going to a place where, where there aren't already autonomous, you know, sort of robotaxis?
HAWKINS: That's a really great question. I think that a lot of experts in this field see Waymo's lead as pretty commanding at this point that Tesla has a lot of catching up to do if it wants to inevitably, compete toe to toe with Waymo. But that said, if it, if it wants to eventually get there, and Elon Musk has said that he wants, you know, hundreds of autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, within a few months, potentially a million, on the road by the end of next year, which seems a little outlandish at this point, but, you know, that is Musk's way of talking about these things.
So, I think it does make sense to want to come into the Arizona market because I think that what you're dealing with is a couple of things. You have a regulatory system that is very favorable to technology companies who do want to test their vehicles there. There are not as many onerous requirements as there are in states like California. And also, there's a very favorable, just geographic environment. It's flat, it's weather is very consistent, the city is laid out, Phoenix is laid out in a grid pattern, which is very favorable for autonomous vehicles. So, I think that there's a number of elements that make Arizona an attractive place for Tesla to want to test its vehicles.
BRODIE: Well, I suppose there's also the aspect of, at least to some degree, people in the Phoenix area are kind of used to this kind of technology, and maybe Tesla isn't starting from scratch to try to convince people that the concept of AVs is scary and maybe one that they should embrace?
HAWKINS: Yeah, I think that that's absolutely correct. I think that what you're dealing with is a number of, you know, customers that are familiar with the technology, they're comfortable with it. Perhaps they're even more trusting of it than, maybe people who live in other cities, and I think that as we've seen, you know, it hasn't been a completely, you know, obstacle free rollout for Waymo, right?
That Waymo has run into problems in California. There were protests, against ICE in Los Angeles recently where a number of Waymo vehicles were destroyed, and that was probably because of, you know, some tension between LA residents and, and, and Waymo that they see the companies as being sort of at the vanguard of surveillance and other things like that and collaborating with with police departments. So I think that that sort of political situation maybe doesn't exist quite as much in Arizona as it does in California, so I think that that's another thing.
But yeah, I agree that customers, people, residents of Phoenix, they're more comfortable with it, they trust the technology and really autonomous vehicles and robotaxis. It really does all come down to trust because you are getting into a vehicle with no one in the front seat, and you really need to trust that company and its technology in order to trust, you know, to put your life in their hands.
BRODIE: Yeah. So, Andrew, let me ask you about this autonomous helicopter that Honeywell tested out there. As I mentioned, other companies are also working on this kind of technology. Where are we in terms of having, having this kind of thing ready to go and how different might they be from, say, drones?
HAWKINS: Yeah, it's a real fastly moving field of technology right now. You have sort of a lot of companies operating in this space that's called “Electric vertical takeoff and landing” or eVTOL and I think that there's, you know, Honeywell, in addition to Joby (Aviation) and Lilium and Archer (Aviation), and a number of other companies have been testing their, their, their aircraft in a number of markets. Nothing has reached the stage of commercial viability yet. There's a number of certification requirements at the FAA level that they still need to receive in order to get their technology approved to carry passengers, for example, lots of obstacles sort of remaining there.
But yeah, I do think that it is a space where a lot of investors in tech are focused on, they see, you know, sort of the promise of, you know, of flying cars as sort of being something that has some connections to this technology and I think that that it makes sense that those vehicles would be autonomous, that you would be able to remove the the pilot from some of these vehicles at a certain point in the future. So, it is a company where there's a lot of money being poured into, a lot of fast moving developments, but still sort of a lot of challenges remaining on the regulatory side as well.
