Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt — Self Driving Cars Will 10X Every Year

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2023-10-06

YouTube video id: udyooWe7Qi8

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udyooWe7Qi8

the CEO of cruise comes on to talk about
its rapidly expanding self-driving car
efforts and how quickly autonomous
driving can take hold that and more
coming up right after this welcome to
Big technology podcast a show for
cool-headed newon conversation of the
tech world and Beyond I've been tooling
around San Francisco and self-driving
cars for the past couple weeks and I
can't wait to talk to you about the
experience and bringing on someone who
can tell us just how quickly this stuff
is going to make its way into cities
across the and the world we're joined
today by Kyle vote he is the CEO of Cru
Kyle so great to meet you so great to
have you here thanks for coming on the
show honor to be here thanks Alex so let
me just start by saying my observation
after trying this stuff out is that it
really feels like we're at an inflection
point with self-driving you know I was a
tech reporter in San Francisco 2015 2016
when everyone said this stuff is right
around the corner and it's just taken a
little bit longer than expected but it
does feel like this is a moment where
this is starting to really take hold and
go mainstream in a way that I think is
really under appreciated I think you had
a stat on LinkedIn that you're
increasing your R like 49% every month
so just tell me a little bit about
whether I'm right about that observation
and if so
why uh you are you I mean you see it in
all the announcements we put out and in
the growing size of the fleet and the
number of people who have ridden in AVS
but taking a step back the reason for
that and for context I've been working
on this at Cru 10 years now so a full
decade why are we just now seeing this
um the answer is this isn't a product
you can put out um if it's if it's like
halfway there or partially there there's
no like launching early kind of thing um
we set the bar you know the safety bar
really high inside of Cru and we wanted
to be convinced that by deploying this
service we're going to have a positive
impact on day one in terms of road
safety uh and and benefits to society
and so you know it took the very first
prototype self-driving cars they maybe
go around a couple blocks or if you've
tried driver assistance systems they
feel like they work but that's the
difference between
99% um you know working 99% of the time
or 99.999 however many NS you think is
appropriate and that you know those
those extra nines of reliability are
what take uh the majority of the work
that's polishing the technology making
sure the safety performance is good
making sure the rides are comfortable
and then also making sure we have um
systems in place to handle with the
reality of operating vehicles on public
roads so that's interacting with First
Responders detecting and pulling over
for emergency vehicles handling pop-up
construction zones there's a really long
list of stuff you have to do to even
reach the Baseline performance of a
human driver but once you do uh the
floodgates are open once once you've
reached that point at which you know
outperform uh humans and aggregate on a
safety basis um at least with regards to
collisions as we've measured
um and you and you feel like you're able
to provide a service then the
constraints become very different it's
no longer this science and technology
problem it's how do we scale how do we
build more infrastructure how do we
manufacture more cars and we finally
after 10 years reached that point so
would you say the floodgates are open
now they are uh at this point well I I
shouldn't say completely open they're
they're open in ways where we can launch
in you know some cities of the US in
some areas so we put limits on our
technology today things like top speed
uh the weather that it will operate in
and those are tightly validated and
controlled you know the ability to
manage our Fleet within those
constraints um but that actually opens
up a lot of cities in the US where we
can operate a reasonably sized Fleet and
as new technologies and improvements
come along like the ability to operate
at higher speeds or in tougher weather
that will just further open up the areas
in which you'll see these vehicles
operate so can you describe a little bit
like the magnitude of what we're seeing
I mean I quoted one of the stats that
you had shared 49% increase in rides
month over month but like can you give
our listeners just a sense as to like
because like it's one thing to say like
the magnitude is increasing but like I'd
love to hear like any context you can
share around that so you know we have
number of rides but like number of cars
what whatever stats or or number of
cities like talk a little bit about like
what this inflection point looks like on
your end well it it is growing
exponentially like you know from an
engineering standpoint um I like to
think in in terms of orders of magnitude
so each time you 10x the scale you know
you've got some new technologies you
need to build or new systems to handle
that increase in load and volume so for
context last year we operating tens of
AVS we're currently operating hundreds
you know almost 400 concurrently at Peak
next year it'll be thousands um and then
it'll kind of continue uh at least 10x
growth every year for their foreseeable
future so that's that's a big that's a
that's a big increase um you know if you
just to plot that curve but it's still
relatively modest compared to the number
of you know total vehicles in ride share
or the total Vehicles you know operated
on the road in the US today um and our
goal look if if you can put a
self-driving mile out there that's
that's safer it's it's cleaner because
it's you know powered by uh you know
electricity instead of combustion engine
um and probably more fun and more
convenient for people uh we should be
doing that as for as many miles as we
can so it'll start with you know kind of
this Robo taxi Market um and then expand
eventually into personal vehicle
ownership
okay I definitely want to get into that
and also I see 10,000 driverless rides
per week so this is not talk a little
bit about the scale like what was that
at the beginning of the year uh I don't
know off the top of my head like on a
per weekly basis maybe maybe hundreds or
maybe a thousand or 2,000 wow so it's
already 10x just from the beginning of
this year yeah it has and and that's
driven by a number of factors obviously
we started by operating our AVS um you
know late at night and and overnight and
early in the morning
and there just aren't that many people
that want to take rides at that time but
that is the least risky environment to
start in and so we wanted to gain
confidence and make sure everything
operated as we expected it to before
expanding into daytime hours but you you
take the same set of AVS if they're only
available in the middle of the night and
then you make them available during the
daytime just that same number of AVS is
going to see 10 times as many rides
right and I think we should talk a
little bit about like what the
experience is like because there's going
to be some listeners who've been in
these self-driving cars but it's
actually very tough to grasp unless
you've actually ridden it before and I
think it's worth like reflecting a
little bit about what it's what what
this is actually like so the fir the one
of my first observations here is just
the progression is so interesting where
you first get in you're a little bit
nervous you're a little bit shocked that
this thing has happened then the second
ride that you take it feels a little bit
routine then the third ride you take
it's almost as if you're not paying
attention to the fact like it becomes
normal so fast by the third ride and I
think by the fourth ride for me it's
just like I don't ever want to drive any
other way the ride feels safe it's
private um you know you know exactly
where the car is you you know you can't
get into a fight with the robot not like
I often fight with the drivers I'm with
but like it's just there's something
about it that it's just um it really
catches on and seems like it makes sense
so quickly so um what what am I do you
think I'm capturing it right I mean I
think I'm saying a lot of nice things
about like what this experience is like
but it's for a reason like it's it it
feels safe and smooth and easy and I
don't know it's like and like the future
yeah well look I'll start by being
humble and saying you know we still have
some percentage of rides where the AV
will do something awkward like pause a
little longer than it should in front of
a construction zone or whatever it may
be but you know in addition to each
individual's personal Journey where
you're going from skeptic to you know
okay this is interesting to how could I
ever live without this that is a very
common Journey that that all our users
go on but the other thing to keep in
mind is that the rate at which these
systems are improving uh is
extraordinary um you know we put push
out software updates to the fleet um
every two to four weeks and each one of
those has substantial improvements
across you know various areas of the
product whether it's the pickup and drop
offs or the routing or the smoothest of
the driving those are getting
continuously better and so your
experience Now versus 6 months ago would
have been very different and like now
you know several months in the future
it's going to feel like a you know a
much more confident experienced driver
even than than what um you've seen today
so you know we're excited about that I
think it's you know that there there
will be public perception will always
lag the true state of this technology
because it's moving so fast by the time
you know people develop a consensus
opinion it's already out of date and I
think that's I think that's kind of fun
because people will constantly be
surprised by the difference in the
actual rides versus you know their
perception based on on what they see or
hear from others yeah and I mean I do I
use ride share and also drive myself and
I think it's interesting because on the
ride share front like if you drive I've
been using these cars in San Francisco
and if you drive in an Uber or LIF in
San Francisco the these are tough roads
you go up and down and um you know
there's curves you tend to get nauseous
I think by by the time you finish your
ride there's a lot of stop signs It's
just tough roads to drive on but the
roads the the roads with an autonomous
vehicle feel much smoother so you talk
about like these cars understand how to
drive more smoothly then there's like
when you drive on your own you know
there's this constant and no anyone who
tells you they're not distracted while
driving right now is is you know either
some sort of Saint or lying because
there's always this stuff pinging at you
and to to be able to drive without you
know without any of those uh forces and
beating on you is is pretty wild I I
think it makes I mean it's common sense
that you know a machine is going to do a
better job driving than a human when you
eliminate all the distraction um you
know assuming it's a decent driver
otherwise but let's talk about you know
ride share you mentioned that I I think
we will look back at you know right now
is kind of like a flawed social
experiment you know gone wrong with with
human driven ride share um you know and
there's so many reasons for that one is
you know we we hear from uh women who
ride and cruise all the time especially
at night that it's so refreshing to get
into a car and not have to worry about
getting into the car with a with a
complete stranger late at night uh you
know and be worried about what their
intentions are and that's not all ride
shell drivers but it's certainly some
and that peace of mind that's something
that we should have never introduce in
the first place this horrible anxiety of
of stepping you know into a car um and
you mentioned that the smoothness of the
ride so we did some research on this and
uh the the cruise AVS are tuned very
carefully to to minimize motion sickness
and how you do that is you know there's
there's acceleration of the vehicle the
derivative of acceleration is called
jerk and like there is a very narrow
window of jerk I guess settings that you
could think of where you minimize the
forward and backward motion of the human
body sitting in a vehicle and we we tune
for that and so you can like if you're
in a ride share driver or even driving
your own car a passenger in a human
driven car and you're staring at your
phone or on your laptop in that car
you're almost certainly going to get
motion sickness um but I found you know
I ride in cruise cars all the time I can
stare at my phone and do work emails and
actually be productive in a car without
having to worry about getting sick and
that's not an accident that is by Design
yeah and the cruise makes you I mean
it's so smooth you don't even feel like
buckling your seat belt and cruise won't
start until you Buckle but it is that's
just for people listening in that that's
sort of how how these rides operate and
you know I know I sound like I'm gushing
here but really that it's it's just like
how the technology operates so I feel
like you know this show we'll we'll talk
about things when they're bad and we'll
talk about things when they're good and
we're not like bound to like the
skeptical or the or the booster angle
and and this is certainly like the truth
of the matter um you mentioned so we're
talking about ride sharing first of all
these the you know I've used the cruise
app I've used weo app um you call the
car it comes to you drops you off where
it doesn't seem like like Uber or lft
really have a future at all um if we
move to this future like you know
initially the way that lft talked to me
about this a few years ago and we just
had David richer on the show the CEO of
lift so you know folks can I guess this
is like um ride hill and self
self-driving car month on on the show
but uh you know the way that they used
to say it is like there would be like
this NE they would be the networks on
top of the technology and you would
effectively use those ride hailing apps
which have mapped out the cities and
routs so well to be able to get your
cars and but and and get to where you
need to go but right now now with the
cruise app or the whmo app that it's
very it's becoming very clear very
quickly that that stuff is unnecessary
so what's your reaction to that is this
something that replaces those apps I
mean at this point it's hard to say
there's a lot of um there's a lot of
nuance and complexity in you know
existing ride hailing apps and services
um but I think that
the I I think the consensus view on how
the industry would evolve over the last
few years um has evolved like originally
there you know one point there were like
60 companies in the state of California
testing AVS and so the view was that you
know maybe half of those or a third of
those will start shipping Robo taxis and
you'll have 30 different Robo taxis just
like there's 30 different you know
brands of cars you know often sold in
the US and then something like you know
a ride share app would be this nice way
to have one interface to all of those um
what has actually happened is this
problem has turned out to be way more
complicated to get to do right uh we
more expensive way more time consuming
and the the field has thinned down to
you know one or two or maybe three
players um and at this point I think you
know that that assumption that you need
an app to sort of like fan out to all
the different types of robot taxis is is
less of a less of a guarantee and so I I
think it it remains to be seen you know
whether AB companies and rer companies
end up partnering or mixing and matching
together uh to form alliances and
whatnot uh but I certainly think it's
there are more options now and you know
Cruz obviously has a standalone today uh
because we think there are benefits to
iterating really quickly on that app
experience simultaneously with the inar
experience so we can give the customer
the best ride possible uh and not have
to sort of translate that experience
through a third party um ride share app
but we'll see we'll see how that evolves
in the future so could you envision a
future where you would partner with ayt
or an Uber and just make these cars
available through those apps well I
would say nothing is off the table but
it would have to make sense for both
parties and and ultimately for
customers speaking of uh lift in Uber so
I guess this is going to be the last of
the ride sharing questions for you but
I've been emailing with um the ride
share guy Harry Campbell and he had a
question uh that he wanted to ask uh
about this um he says explain the
economics of how a cruise vehicle with
technology R&D Etc will ever be cheaper
than a human driver who gets paid $20 an
hour to use their own car like what is
the break even point because I'm not
seeing it I mean I think that's a good
question what's your
perspective uh well I mean
I would flip it around I would say why
wouldn't a vehicle where basically the
dominant cost is just the fuel or
electricity um you know once you
amortize the the technical costs like
you know versus paying an entire human
livable wage which is going to go up
over time um I think as as Society
demands you know um you know higher
minimum wage and other things and so
that's going in the wrong direction like
it's going to increase over time I think
the the human wage whereas the cost of
the technology is dropping dramatically
um both on a upfront cost as in the cost
to manufacture the vehicle with all the
technology but also on the operating
cost per mile so the overhead we pay to
monitor these vehicles to develop
software for them all of that um
basically gets way cheaper on a per
vehicle basis as you add more Vehicles
so the unit economics aren't great at
hundreds of vehicles they start to get
pretty interesting at thousands and then
you know above that um the advantage
versus a human ride share driver is
pretty dramatic actually and that's
that's both again due to decrease in
operating cost but also um we have two
generations of newer AV sensors in
compute technology in develop um in
development that each one of those has a
huge drop in the cost of you know the
sensors and compute to the point where
it doesn't really add that much to the
cost of the vehicle you know if few your
out right now uh your your cars are full
self-driving um there's another company
that talks about full self-driving and
that's Tesla you mentioned there's one
two three companies I mean two I can
think of right off the bat is you and
Google uh with weo but Tesla is an
interesting case because okay their full
self-driving isn't exactly full
self-driving but they have more cars
driving more miles autonomously than I
think anybody so how do you view their
effort well I think that's a that's a
common misconception and I think one
that um has been played up quite a bit
to to sell more cars frankly and that
you know I understand why that is but
there's a huge distinction between a
driverless car as in you can sit in the
back seat or it can go pick you up
without anyone inside or go pick up your
kids from school or whatever it is and
one where you have to sit behind the
wheel and you're constantly monitoring
and ready to take over at a moment's
notice in this like high alert mode yeah
and so I I describe it as look either
the car works for you that's a robo taxi
that's driverless car or you work for
the car that's what you're doing when
you're sitting behind the wheel of
system yeah but you don't think that
training that that's helping to to train
the Tesla to the point where they could
actually be fully autonomous well look
if if data was the only constraint to
making a driver this car I think there
would be a lot more driverless cars out
there than there are uh it's a lot more
than data like cruise is not data
starved even with you know hundreds of
vehicles on the road we've got we're
we're drowning in data it's really the
ability to turn those that that data in
insights and drive improvements to the
product and um you know a strategy we
took early on is we start with well
equipped Vehicles they actually have all
the done and see in telecommunications
the uh three different modalities of
sensors all those things so that we
could solve the technical problems first
which is the hardest thing to do and
we've done that at least in you know in
our early days and then the easier part
is then driving down the cost once you
have a working functioning system
because you can go in and optimize all
the pieces that turned out to be um
overbuilt versus what you know you now
need um but again there's no there's no
parallel they're not the same thing like
a system that's driver assistance where
you have to take control versus one
where you have cars driving around
without a driver and that really doesn't
come to light until you actually try to
do it and realize you need all these um
degraded States like if you have a
malfunction right now if if a camera
gets covered up on a a car with driver
assistance systems it just turns off if
you have a robo taxi driving down the
street and a sensor gets blocked it has
to detect that use its other sensors
pull over to the side of the road safely
and then you may have situations where
there's you know remote assistance
needed to figure out what to do with
that car you don't just want to leave it
blocking the street um there's so many
nuances to going from driver assist to
driverless um that it's it's uh it's
quite silly to me to even put those in
the same sentence okay well glad that we
clear that up um speaking
of good I mean look we got to talk about
it right so there's one more company
that we have to talk about in terms of
ones that could end up in that hierarchy
which is Apple no one seems to talk
about their self-driving efforts I'm
sure you're more queued into what
they're doing the most do you view them
as legitimate competitor in this space
well they're pretty secretive I actually
don't have any you know inside Intel on
that but what I would say is that you
know apple has a history of entering
Industries late but with a really
compelling and oftentimes better product
um and so I I wouldn't put it that past
them um but I will say that unlike a
consumer device which you can test
really well behind closed doors um you
know building driverless AVS is very
interactive you have all these feedback
mechanisms between you know how AV react
with other users on the road training
First Responders to interact with
vehicles working with local governments
um it's very hard to just show up on day
one and drop uh driverless AVS
everywhere I I think it does take a
measured and deliberate approach to
scaling that's very collaborative
working with regulators and and local
state and federal government um and so I
think there's a long path ahead for
anyone else uh wanting to enter the
market you know beyond Crews and and
maybe a couple others that are already
doing that and my understanding is that
they've I mean they've been working on
this project for a long time it has been
had a lot of fun names like project
Titan but inside the company they've
they've culturally struggled to build it
their iPhone strategy of you know figure
out what the hardware looks like and
then build the software inside doesn't
really work for self-driving cars like
you can't bury the sensor like you know
the cruise the cruise Vehicles they've
got the sensors and the cameras on top
and if Apple wants to make it look sleek
and uh you know potentially risk some of
the data collection because of the look
then that's what's that's what seld them
back in the past from the reporting that
I've done well you know it takes takes
about four years to to to um you know go
through the automotive development cycle
and so what you see on the road with Cru
Robo taxi was four years ago technology
the stuff we're developing now um you
know is a lot more sleek and integrated
for future vehicles but you know I guess
with a company like apple the fear is
that Cru gets disrupted like there's an
iPhone moment when they drop something
new so what we tried to do is disrupt
ourselves and we have our own iPhone
moment coming with the Cru origin which
is our six-seater vehicle with seats
that face each other there's no driver's
seat there's no steering wheel it feels
like you know your own little like Party
Box on on Wheels you got lighting and
screens and sound systems and all that
it's it's pretty cool and I think that
will be the moment it people realize
that uh a driverless car is not just a
car without the driver uh it's actually
a totally new mode of transportation and
the origin is out in Austin at this
point what's the expansion on public
roads currently in in Austin and
actually also in San Francisco uh and
then now it's in San Francisco now not
not every day but we are doing testing
on public roads in San Francisco yes and
you'll see that that ramp up uh uh quite
a bit later this year uh can't can't
announce too much right now but we're
putting I I would I think it's fair to
say we're putting the finishing touches
on that vehicle uh and it's going to be
pretty awesome now the origin so the
origin basically looks like this pod um
really right out of science fiction
movies two benches facing each other and
is that something that you're going to
have one person ride in or is your
vision for it to be ride share well um
so talk about another social experiment
going wrong pooled rides uh for human
driven ride share is totally awkward you
sit in the backseat of like you know a
Toyota Camry shoulder-to-shoulder with
someone you've never met uh and it can
be pretty jarring pretty uncomfortable
and you do that to save a couple bucks
you know on your fair um with the origin
the seats that face first of all they're
facing each other so there's no worry
about like someone sitting behind you
and you can't see what they're doing
that was something we heard loud and
clear from uh customers when we studied
this and then um if you're sitting
opposite each other there's more like
leg room than a like a first class
airline seat so you can you have plenty
of space to be physically distant from
someone else even though you're sharing
the same vehicle which I think will make
uh will fix a lot of the flaws that were
in pooled rides or shared rides um you
know in the first generation of that and
so as a result I think you'll see um
increased engagement in that which helps
with throughput lowers congestion all
these good secondary benefits not to
mention lower cost rides to Consumers um
you know for this vehicle so it's
designed with that in
mind Kyle vote is with us he's the CEO
of Cru we're going to talk a little bit
more about how Cru expands into a
specific City looking specifically at
the example of Los Angeles when we come
back right after this and we're back
here on big technology podcast with Kyle
vote he's the CEO of cruise as we record
this cruise is about to expand into Los
Angeles um can you talk a little bit
about like the thought process that
because La is obviously um High you know
very much and by the way listeners when
you listen to this the the expansion is
already going to be underway um we were
just recording a couple days before but
uh when you expand to a city like La
driver heavy you know massive what are
some of the considerations that go into
that yeah I mean we're super excited uh
Los Angeles is a huge Market um a place
where I think a lot of people uh Drive
their own cars everywhere and so the
idea that you'll have another mode of
transportation that's convenient and
safe and and just you know get you there
every time uh I think it's going to be
amazing and so you know it has all of
the companies energy a couple years ago
was just on improving you know the
performance basically of a single type
of vehicle running a small number of
them in a single City and once we felt
like we had line of sight to to large
scale operations in San Francisco we had
to totally reorient how the company
worked to set it up to scale to multiple
cities and so that was setting up you
know teams that can go out and Scout on
the ground and basically identify any
differences about you know Los Angeles
that are unique compared to San
Francisco Dallas Houston Austin all the
other places we're in uh and then we
send out testing vehicles and we have a
whole Playbook now for basically safely
validating that the AVS are ready for a
city uh and then slowly ramping up
operations and sort of matching Riders
to the uh supply of vehicles as as we
increase it and so you're going to see
that same Playbook which we've now done
in in Phoenix and Austin and many other
cities on the way now uh happen in in
Los Angeles um so at this point you know
there are fewer surprises when we move
to New cities um and I feel like a city
like Los Angeles um you know the stakes
are high it's a it's a tough environment
as well for traffic and other reasons
and so you know at this point we'll have
done this process you know five or six
times um and and really had a chance to
uh to do it really well before we roll
into Los Angeles are you going to be in
all neighborhoods in La no we'll
probably start off in in uh you know a
few neighborhoods and then ramp up over
time our vehicles won't be on the
highway right right now which I think is
good we don't want to you know
contribute to highway traffic but for
people moving around you know within a
city um you know are going from one city
to the other and don't need to take the
freeway uh it'll be a really great
option can you name a few of the
neighborhoods that you're anticipating
you're going to start with uh not yet
we'll see that might be in the
announcement as as we put it out but uh
you know it it'll be um uh I guess the
places you would expect I'll leave it at
that okay I'm going to just guess Venice
Santa Monica those type of areas try put
my face on and not give anything away
yeah okay let's see um so so it's very
this is kind of one of the things that I
thought about when I started getting in
these cars for the first time in SF was
like wow they can handle the San
Francisco Road um they if they can do
this they can do anything and I'd love
to hear from your perspective like you
know um you know how much is it how much
is it that they've just learned San
Francisco in particular I think you got
to this or that they've learned like how
to drive and can and and those skills
are applicable
elsewhere yeah so um I'll break it down
into two things like sort of the um
uh I guess Road layout and traffic
infrastructure like traffic lights and
other things those those vary slightly
from City to city like in Austin there's
horizontal traffic lights which we don't
see uh in San Francisco and some local
differences like that that take a little
bit of work to adapt to but I think the
the part that we were more concerned
about initially or at least just wanted
to validate was that the driving
behavior we had seen in San Francisco
and The Pedestrian Behavior and the
cyclist Behavior does that translate
well to other cities um and the answer
is it mostly does uh out out of the gate
you take a system that's designed to
operate safely in San Francisco and put
it in Austin or Phoenix uh and it
performs extremely well now there's some
local differences uh that are related to
you know the width of the roads or how
people you know some of these more
unique per City situations and so we
have a process by which we very quickly
um well we have basically ways when the
AVS drive around if they see something
unusual or something that doesn't match
what they expect they can log it
transmit it back to our you know data
data centers aous yeah we retrain on
their ownx to adapt to the new things
there but it's it's it's aggregate so
what we see in Austin and Phoenix gets
added to what we see in San Francisco
Isco and so by the time we go to a city
after that um the the chances that
there's something truly unique uh are
are much much smaller and at that point
the a has a pretty good ability to adapt
things that you know it hasn't seen
exactly before it may not perform
exactly like a human would but it's
still going to be safe and and pretty
comfortable and and we continue to
fine-tune that but and and the
explanation for this is that even though
you know there's a maybe the
distribution of driving behavior in one
city is different maybe San Francisco
has a driving personality that's
different than Boston or New York or
Portland within that distribution you
still see examples of Boston drivers
Portland drivers New York drivers in San
Francisco and so it's not like the the a
has never seen that it just sees a
different you know um distribution of
drivers uh and so that means that you
know if you train in one city uh it
actually does port to other cities you
know more than you would think you said
uh let's see you said um it took some
some work to adapt to these new cities
but most of the systems worked well as
is can you basically drop a fleet of
cars in a new city knowing like 85 90%
of what you need to know and just like
have it work and retrain or is is like
what is the ramp up process there um
well you know we've done this a few
times so and so we're still very um
measured and cautious in how we do it so
we start by putting a fleet of vehicles
that have humans behind the wheel ready
to take over and that is kind of our our
um you know last check that we do uh
well as part of our many validation
efforts to ensure that you know even
though we've done simulation even though
we've um you know validated the system
in one city and collect the data in
another city we want to make sure when
we put it all together it performs as
expected and so that is you know a last
uh sort of safety net to catch any um
surprising differences before we
actually take the drivers out of the car
um but even when we when we get to that
point uh the probability of of seeing
something new uh or having you know we
call it like a test Test Escape like
something something where the AV doesn't
perform as intended um is extremely
small and we we basically don't see many
of those anymore um so in other words
yes you know we could take the system
and drop it into a new city blind but we
don't do that because we're very
cautious and measured in how we deploy
but it seems like you're taking less and
less it takes less of a lift to deploy
in a new city for each each time you do
it I mean you've gone from what one to
Seven Cities this year and and what what
are we what can we expect by the end of
the year we're about to you're about to
go into I think an eighth but correct me
on the numbers if I'm wrong yeah we're
not done uh there'll be more this year
um uh and uh you know that that's
because next year we're going to be
manufacturing a lot of vehicles and um
you know that's that's our biggest
limitation to scale right now we just
don't have the vehicles but we're going
to be building more and um we we've
learned from San Francisco and other
cities that um it takes time for
communities to acclimate to this new
mode of transportation you know the
first time that people see a driverless
car in their neighborhood there's a lot
of double takes and surprise
of filming as you go of reactions and so
what we don't want to do is Drop Like
You Know thousands of cars into a city
overnight uh and catch people off guard
and so by having lots of cities we can
actually make a lot of vehicles and
spread them out deploy them across many
places so there's no abrupt change in
any one city that would catch people off
guard we want to deploy with communities
and not at them and so part of that is
making sure that uh you manage the rate
of change and and the expect
I mean you're sort of winking at some of
like the legal and Regulatory challenges
you might face as you you go about
expanding I mean what is the state right
now and I mean I think we can all it's
starting to become consensus that these
vehicles are safer than human driven
cars so maybe you can share a little bit
about about that in particular about the
safety aspect and then talk a little bit
about like what are the regulatory
hurdles that you face and how and is
that like the I mean outside of building
cars is that like the number two for
instance uh barrier that you face in
expansion yeah well I I think first it
goes without saying that you know
Regulators play a really important role
this is a technology that operates on
public roads um you're carrying
passengers involves Public Safety it
deserves a certain level of scrutiny and
I think because the data um and and I'll
talk about exactly what data we have in
a second uh is relatively fresh and and
recent you know we've only driven you
over over 3 million miles now almost
million um and and so we have some
safety performance data but we've only
published it you know the last few
months and so I think regulators and you
know communities you know local state
and federal government need some time to
adjust to that before um I think they
come to the conclusion they ultimately
will which is is clearly beneficial to
our communities and uh we should
encourage it and be pulling it into our
communities uh versus slowing it down or
potentially putting up roadblocks so we
haven't reached that point yet and I and
I think that's fine given the recency of
the data but I expect that's where it
will go so in terms of the actual safety
performance um you know there's a lot of
you know best practices you can follow
or industry standards or other things
but that can get fairly academic and is
not very convincing to many people
especially the average person and so
what we did in San Francisco is we
collected data uh from Human drivers to
start with so we could compare the AVS
to human drivers and we collected you
know millions of miles across uh
vehicles and did a study with leading
Transportation Research Institute uh we
actually instrumented ride share
Vehicles so these drivers had you know
they're driving around Vehicles covered
in sensors so we could detect anytime
they got into a collision even if it
wasn't reported by insurance or reported
to the police like even the most minor
contact with objects or curbs or
whatever it is um and so we have this
data set now on how well humans drive
and it's probably not a shocker to
anyone is that they don't drive nearly
as well as you know the government
thinks uh or insurance companies think
there's a lot more things that go
unreported um but now that we have that
data set we were able to take AVS and
drive them in the same area a very
comparable environment and measure
directly how often AVS were getting into
crashes especially the different levels
of severity of crashes and compare than
humans and even you know from our first
million miles and remember this product
is getting continuous getting better
just from the first million uh we saw um
a 50% reduction in in any kind of Crash
um and uh over 70% reduction ction in
the kinds of crashes that could lead to
injury so not only are the Avs getting
in crashes but um when they get into a
crash it's less likely to be one where
there was an injury so we have a lot of
situations where an a is sitting still
at a red light and a distracted driver
rear ends it we count that as a crash it
is a crash um even though the AV you
know did nothing to contribute to that
are you is very compelling are you able
to tune the model like where the the
setting where like do you like have like
a hidden beast mode setting where these
cars just like Drive fast and accept
like a greater percentage chance of
collision we don't have that I'm not
sure we'd build that um but we are we
are are doing some interesting things
like our Focus you know earlier on was
to get the AVS to be really good at not
causing collisions uh but what we found
you know last couple years if that's not
good enough we actually be really good
at avoiding bad driving by other humans
so we put up like for example now if a
car is reversing uh and about to reverse
into an AV and the driver is not paying
attention we actually honk the horn to
try to get their attention and I can't
even the number of times the driver has
been like thank you I wasn't paying
attention like they send us feedback and
say thank you for honking the horn
otherwise would have smashed my bumper
um you know and that's one one example
of many of things we're doing to help
humans make fewer mistakes right um I'm
curious about the way that consumers
will pay for this are they going to pay
like per ride or is are you going to get
like a subscription to Cru and just like
you know hit a button and it shows up
whenever um I don't know yet to be
honest we're going to experiment with
some things but um you know right now
what we're seeing is that we're Supply
constrained there's far more demand to
ride in these vehicles Than Cars
available uh that's why we have a weight
list and other things in cities and it's
it's can be pretty long at times and um
we're also seeing people report that
they have a a very significant
preference for AVS over you know human
driven ride share vehicle you know as
you experience by your third or fourth
ride you're like I want this all the
time and so that could lead to all sorts
of different things on on the the
pricing side um but what we do expect is
that you know demand is going to exceed
Supply unfortunately for several years
on this product just because we won't be
able to build enough cars to meet you
know the Nationwide red share demand in
the next couple of years right okay do
you have a sense as to like when this is
going to be do you yeah I mean do you
have a Target goal for like when this
might overtake human driving
cars well
um
you know there there are like over 200
million cars uh on the road today in the
US and it would take us a long time to
build that many cars and so I think
we're going to be in this world where um
human driven cars and and Robo taxis and
also personally owned autonomous
vehicles all coexist for quite some time
um just because it will take a long time
to roll over the entire fleet but what I
do expect is you know within two or
three years most likely I think the
majority of new car sales uh will
transition to Vehicles where people
don't have to drive because once you
have that choice I have a hard time
believing that people are going to go to
a dealership or go online or whatever
and buy a car where they have to drive
all the time versus one where they can
choose and and I think that's gonna I
think that's going to flip very quick
interesting okay last question for you I
just want to hear a little bit more
about like the corporate structure
because you've raised something like7
billion um you have ties to GM and Honda
so you know can you talk a little bit
like is Cruz like a subsidiary of these
automakers um do they just have large
chunks of ownership from you are you
like planning to like do like the
traditional IPO exit route like talk a
little bit about that well we're uh over
80% owned by General Motors but we do
have outside institutional and strategic
investors we also have our separate
board from General Motors and so what
we're trying to do there is create an
alignment between General Motors and
cruise uh they manufacture all our
vehicles they help like design and
engineer most of the the vehicles
themselves and we work more on the
Computing sensing technology and so you
know at this point in time we benefit
greatly from this you know High overlap
in ownership and easy ability to
collaborate but we have just enough
Independence that you know everyone at
Cru feels like they work for Cru um you
know first and foremost it it feels like
a separate company we take a lot of
steps to make it feel like a startup um
so that we can get that that energy that
sense of urgency uh and that focus on on
delivering results that is um uh you
know harder to do for for Innovative or
or unique products inside of a larger
company so as it stands today I think
we've got the best of both worlds and
we're pretty happy with the structure
Kyle vot thanks so much for joining
thank you all right thanks everybody for
listening thank you Nate guatney for
handling the audio LinkedIn for having
me as part of your podcast Network and
all you the listeners we'll see you next
time on big technology podcast