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The AI Startup Challenging Tesla and Waymo in the Race to Automate Driving — WSJ
The AI Startup Challenging Tesla and Waymo in the Race to Automate Driving — WSJ
About this update from Stellantis N.v.
By Stephen Wilmot and Christopher OttsEarlier this year, a team of engineers flew to Detroit on a secret mission to make Jeep Grand Cherokees drive themselves.A few weeks later, prototypes were convincing enough for Jeep owner Stellantis to take investors on test rides around Motor City's suburbs and commit to rolling out the technology across America.The self-driving know-how was developed by Wayve, a British startup that is emerging as an unlikely front-runner in a hard-fought race with U.S. behemoths Tesla and Google owner Alphabet to bring autonomous vehicles to the masses.Stellantis said last month it would use Wayve's "AI driver" across its brands — which also include Chrysler, Dodge and Ram — from 2028. The deal followed a similar agreement with Nissan that envisaged a potentially earlier launch in Japan.The technology promises hands-free navigation on both highways and urban roads as long as the human driver stays attentive and ready to take over as a backup. Tesla pioneered this approach with the feature it now sells as "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)."But while Tesla bakes that technology into its own vehicles, Wayve thinks selling its systems as an off-the-shelf solution to other automakers could be where the real money is in self-driving."Not everyone wants to buy a Tesla," said Wayve co-founder Alex Kendall. "Our opportunity is to bring this technology to every other automaker."On a test drive in one of the Grand Cherokee prototypes last month, a Stellantis engineer took his hands off the wheel and the vehicle navigated through stop signs and traffic lights around the automaker's sprawling campus in Auburn Hills, Mich. The ride was smooth, save for a split second when the Grand Cherokee had trouble finding its lane amid faded road markings.A look in the vehicle's trunk revealed how the automaker jury-rigged a run-of-the-mill sport-utility vehicle to run with Wayve's technology. Dozens of wires snaked around three electronic boxes, one of them connected to an old-school car battery for supplemental power.Stellantis is sourcing parts that eliminate all those wires and boxes for the vehicles it plans to sell commercially.Like Tesla in Texas, Wayve also has more futuristic ambitions to do without the human driver altogether. The startup is launching a robotaxi trial in London with Uber this summer ahead of a planned global rollout that will inclu...