Well, we got a busy show today, but like any good party, you get a hangover. And Uber has a Waymo hangover. While Uber tries to get over their Waymo hangover, Zoox is getting paid. And while Zoox gets paid, the teams are trying to bodyslam autonomous trucking in the Golden State. Let's start with Uber's Waymo hangover. What did we learn on the call this week?
Well, you know, they did talk about and there was a lot of questions about autonomy as you would expect. I mean, there was on the revenue side things were a little light, not because of bookings, it's, you know, kind of a take rate issue, so nothing that we could say that, hey, they were light because autonomy is having an impact. Remember, still early days, not a lot of cars in their markets to have financial impact on Uber now, but certainly if you're a little light on revenue now before autonomy really hits, not necessarily ideal. What was interesting is they did comment on this $10 billion number. You remember that was the Financial Times piece, so I know that created hubbub at the time, but I think they're finally just owning this and saying, 'Yeah, obviously we're going to be spending a lot of money.' Remember, listeners, this $10 billion is a combination partly of investments in these companies, and I think some of them might do some more investments in the coming year, but also just in the commitment in the number of cars that they're going to purchase. And so that car purchase thing is going to take time, right? They're not buying thousands of cars soon, right? There still has to be technology development and OEM things. So, I don't know, I thought it was an interesting call. The stock obviously sold off back down into the 60s. And really the primary issue here is this autonomy overhang that's on the stock.
It's a hangover, Walt. It's a hangover. And the reason I'm calling it a hangover is because if you go on X, all the Uber bulls are out there trying to give you a Pedialyte and Gatorade to get over the hangover. It's amazing what's happening to try and cure this Waymo hangover.
Yeah. I don't know what the cure is because again, this gets back to the report we put out last week and you just look at like what is the market going to look like a year from now and it's not going to look that much better, right? Waymo is going to just extend that lead in terms of number of cars that are on the road. And again, if you're having success with some of these early partners, it's still not amounting to a lot of cars. This doesn't mean, by the way, that I'm saying that Uber's out of the running, out of the race, whatever. It's still early days in terms of autonomy. It's just pointing out like if you're looking at the stock that the number of catalysts or the information flow there and where they can get to in a year's time isn't necessarily a great situation. That doesn't imply that in '28, '29 or '30 when they hope to get to these 100,000 cars or whatever it is that their fortunes can't turn.
It could. I mean, there's still a lot of variables in play in the robo taxi market. Obviously, you and I know Waymo's going global and Uber's made what you want to call a mission to expand autonomy globally. They're setting all initiatives in place. But those are big numbers. It takes a lot of capital. It's going to take more than $10 billion to reach those numbers in my opinion. And at that time, where is Waymo going to be or will a new incumbent outmaneuver them and accelerate tech? And then does Uber potentially have another divorce on the horizon? I say that because at some point the brand will get stronger for some of these AV companies than Uber and they'll realize that they don't need Uber because it's not hard to build an app. Yes, the pushback is, well, the demand, but consumers like brands.
Dara, first of all, a couple things. Dara on the call indicated that he thought that that relationship would continue next year. Obviously, contractually it will continue. You and I have talked about that there might be language within those contracts that enables Waymo to get out. You can just refer to last week's podcast on going through that. I think the other one you might be hinting towards is Zoox, who I think Zoox has always wanted to have their own app. Now, you and I are both somewhat skeptical about how many cars Zoox can actually get on the road over the next year, but I'll give Dara credit. I think when asked about Zoox, he made it clear that, look, Zoox will exist on the Uber app, but Zoox will also, you know, you'll also be able to get it on the Zoox app itself. And I guess the real question is like if you really want to take a Zoox in any of these markets, are you really going to bother going through Uber or are you going to go directly to that Zoox app? You're going to go directly to the Zoox app. And I got to give Zoox credit. When you land at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, you can't turn left, you can't turn right, you can't even look up without seeing a Zoox ad. They pretty much painted the airport Zoox green. And so that says, 'Okay, download the app.' It's not saying, 'Hi, go to Uber and get us.' It's pretty clear what their ambitions are.
That's a good segue to our next segment, which is that Zoox has gotten approval for paid rides as of next week. And I'm going to fast forward because you bring up the airport to a point that the CEO Aicha said on Bloomberg when she was getting interviewed, when asked about getting to the airport, because you know one of the criticisms that we've had is like there's a limited number of stops. I had to go to my famous, you know, Caesar chicken, greatest Caesar chicken at the Top Golf in Vegas, [laughter] check it out. But I had to walk just to try the Zoox. It's limited locations. She was asked like, 'What about the airport?' and indicated that it's coming soon. I think Rob had some, you know, your partner had some good feedback on what maybe why that might not be as soon as Zoox is leading us on, on again a Zoox vehicle going to the airport in Las Vegas.
Rob did uncover some really great data. He used Omega, pulled the NHTSA filing, and the NHTSA filing says this is public NHTSA data. Zoox cannot operate per NHTSA restrictions above 45 miles an hour. So why is that an issue? Well, the average traffic speed coming out of the Las Vegas airport is 55 miles an hour. This is AAA data, I'll cite that. That does not include the freeway. That is the tunnel where the maximum speed of the tunnel is 35, average speed is 55, and access roads 45, and sometimes they go 60. So it's going to be very difficult to keep there because you can cite Consumer Reports, AAA, any data you want. When you're going below the speed limit, it's potentially a lot more dangerous. And I say below the speed limit, they say, 'Oh, yes, well, that's the speed limit, but you have to go with the flow of traffic.' And the Zoox, it's going below traffic and potentially a safety hazard, which Rob uncovered in that NHTSA filing. There was a lot of safety requirements there. Now that I said that, I have to say this. Top Golf, why don't you sponsor the podcast, walk a chicken salad here in person, and tell the world how great it is. The chicken Caesar. The chicken Caesar. Try it out next time you're in Vegas. It's very tasty. And look, I'll just throw a good advertisement for you on Omega. You know, that's just a small taste of I think what you can get from what Omega offers in terms of info on the autonomy segment. Let's go back though to this pricing for Zoox. You know, when it's on the Uber app, it's comfort tier pricing. I'm not sure if it's going to match what Zoox themselves are charging. So that's above I guess UberX. It's a base fare plus time and distance. If it reroutes for whatever reason, there's not a penalty. What's your view on where they were priced in the market?
They're priced as a luxury option. There were several interviews that representatives from Zoox gave in the media where they said on the record they're going to price at 20 to 40% above your average rideshare fee. That is clearly positioned as a luxury product. What we know as of June 2026, according to NHTSA data, there's 105 Zoox vehicles, and we had a friend of the show who was in Las Vegas yesterday, tried to get a Zoox, service unavailable. So, if you're going to price as a premium luxury product, you cannot pick your own destination and you have to wait long periods of time, the pricing power is going to evaporate.
So, I think it's not a comfort or it's not a luxury pricing. I think it's a tourism pricing. These things, as everyone knows, are kind of funny looking things that you might see at Disney World. I know Grayson doesn't like them. I like the design. It kind of reminds me of a London taxi because you have plenty of leg room. I'm a tall guy. You know, you can face someone and talk to them. So, I think the pricing is there. And then the other thing I'd say about pricing is like I think a lot of times people overanalyze the pricing, these initial pricing, whether it's Tesla or Waymo or Uber. Again, early stage here, they don't have to lean on pricing yet, they don't have to play with pricing. They might do some testing here and there. Wait till they have like thousands of cars in these markets and they're really competing with rideshare, and that's when some of these pricing decisions probably really matter. To your point, waiting 15 minutes for whatever the price is, you're really just paying for, you know, a tourist ride in Vegas.
Well, not 15 minutes. Hour and 15 minutes. You forgot 60 minutes there. So that's 75 minutes. I just have to point that out there. So here's the question. We know Waymo has put out a blog post. They are getting ready to launch service in Las Vegas. Okay. Motional is there. You can already get that on the Uber app. And if you read Elon's X account, the robo taxi is going to Vegas. What do you think from your perspective that's going to do to the pricing power? Does that diminish or does Zoox continue to stay as you called it, a Disney World attraction?
I think it stays as a Disney World attraction. There's just not enough cars. It doesn't go to enough places. They're just going to maintain that. They should just maintain that price. I don't think they're going to have an issue, you know, with getting enough demand to fill whatever supply that they're planning on there.
So that raises the next question. In this NHTSA document that Omega found and Rob analyzed, five cities of service publicly approved, two blacked out in the NHTSA document. So we know that they have approval to operate in seven cities. 105 vehicles for seven cities. Wait times are not going to get better. How do you think that Zoox is going to deploy the vehicles? Will they just deploy 90 plus percent of them in Vegas just to try and get these wait times down because it's going to have a pretty negative impact on their brand if these wait times continue? And Aicha even admitted the wait times are long in a Bloomberg interview this week. So, we're not the only ones talking about it.
Yeah. But in that Bloomberg interview, she also talked about how production is ramping up. US production, by the way. And you know, she's counting up by number of vehicles per day versus per week. Wasn't specific with the actual numbers, but just implying that, you know, this 100 is just a first start and that things are really going to start kicking in in terms of getting these vehicles off the line.
Yes, but I have to be me. There's a risk. I'm very thankful they're made in the United States, but they're made in California, and there is a risk of unionization, which will delay the timeline and push up the cost. But progress.
Before we move on, just one last thing. Are we just ignoring the fact that this thing only has a limited number of stops in Las Vegas? I [laughter] mean, is this true autonomy if it doesn't go to every hotel that's on the strip at a minimum?
I got to say, you had a really great back and forth with Jason. You said, 'Can we go to the Cosmo?' When Jason goes, 'Why Cosmo?' And then you had a response, and I have to vouch for you. The greatest party at CES is a Light Shed party. And thank you for inviting me. I was very honored to be there. Met a lot of great folks. But Zoox, you got to go to the Cosmo because you got to go to Walt's Light Shed party. It's where it's at. And then maybe we'll do an Autonomy Markets party there as well.
I think that's a good idea. And Zoox, if you'd like to be a sponsor of the Autonomy [laughter] Markets party, be our guest, but it might be at the Cosmo. So, we'd have to book it somewhere where Zoox would actually drop off our guests.
Very valid point. So there are cars that do go on highways and are at least licensed to go on highways, other than what, you know, Rob uncovered about Zoox and some of their limitations. And that's our friends at Waymo. Waymo, our friends at Waymo. [laughter] By the way, last week there was an edit that didn't get edited that someone pointed out when I misspoke. Okay, leave this one in. We're not editing it. We'll do it live. Okay, so Waymo, freeways are back and they're returning to freeways after a two-month pause because of all the construction zone thing. These are the airport unlock, right? This is the same thing that Rob was pointing out in terms of Zoox. You're going to have to get on a road that's got 45 miles or more to get to a lot of these airports. There's not many airports where you can just take back roads to get into. So, what do you think about this in terms of a progress point?
When you said Waymo, the next thing I thought you were going to say was Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. [laughter] I didn't know where you were going with that. It's a positive. It is a positive step. And for any of our listeners and viewers who have taken the Waymo service from SFO to go down to the valley or to go into the city, you know that it requires highway. And if you've punished yourself, which I have, and you've done surface roads, it's not a lot of fun. So this is a very positive step for Waymo. And they admitted that there was an issue. They corrected it. Nothing happened, and then they're moving on. So, I view it as a huge positive. And you're right. It is a giant airport unlock. If you cannot access freeways in the majority of international cities, you're not going to be able to unlock the true benefits and revenue that come with airports.
Kind of a quiet week for Waymo in general. Should we expect a new market next week? It seems like they've been quiet. I have to go back to my little scoreboard here to see which Midwest city we should expect them in next.
Waymo's been quiet, but I will tease this. Omega's been picking up quite a few new corporate filings around the world. So when and if Waymo decides to expand there and make those public, we'll see. But Waymo, Omega thinks something's cooking.
I love it that there's some more reasons to check out a subscription to Omega. Meanwhile, on the reporting front, we had Lucid reporting. Why do we care about Lucid? It's the partner to Nuro. And Nuro is one of the key partners for Uber to execute on getting some of these autonomous cars in the market. So when they, and remember like a week or two ago there was this, you know, false report about them looking to restructure, whatever. So look, they reported, the stock got crushed. Q2 didn't really hit. Gross margin was negative by like 100%. They're burning I think over a billion dollars, I think, in the quarter. The deliveries weren't great, but at least they've kind of recognized that autonomy is the top strategic priority and that the Uber-Nuro robo taxi project is a quote must-win project. And they put this all now in Lucid Technologies. Hopefully this isn't part of the, you know, a corporate structure where they're putting the robo taxi in a protected entity while other stuff happens somewhere else. I don't know what the full, you know, color on that is, but I think it's at least good and obvious that these guys are focused on working things out with Nuro. I guess my question to you is, it is August, early August. The timeline is clicking quickly for all three of these companies, Uber, Nuro, and Lucid, to deliver on some type of autonomy robo taxi in California in the Waymo market, you know, by year end. Do you think they make it?
No. And what do you think the holdup is?
The holdup in my opinion will be the regulatory holdup. And I want to clarify, there is a high likelihood and a high probability they'll be able to start service that is not paid, because you can go talk to Rob and he can break down all the permits you have to get. That's his role. That's his job. He's great at it. There's a high probability they can offer free service but not paid service by the end of the year. They must deliver. But if you're looking at this and saying, 'Okay, you said you're going to deliver a robo taxi service and it's free,' it's like, 'Huh? You put all this money in and huh, you can't charge.' It's just, I've said this going on two decades now. Your first launch market for a robo taxi service should never be California. And I have to give a lot of credit to Alphabet and when they made the decision to go to Chandler. It was the right decision. And look what happened when they made that decision.
Well, the biggest problem then is really for Uber because you can't call something a market launch. Launch for Uber means like it's on their app and you're paying for it, even if there's a safety driver in there, like AV Ride in Dallas is launched and we know some of the issues that they've had there. So for Nuro, it's not a big deal because like, okay, you have 100 vehicles, you can at least be out there showing the world that your tech works in these Lucid cars, even if it's probably going to be employees or whatever it is taking it. And then hopefully, I guess, that they can get through some of these regulatory hurdles and have a true launch in early 2027. So, I don't think it's the end of the world, obviously, if what you're saying is true, but you know, you and I follow this pretty closely, right? It has been talked about as an end of the year type of launch. You know, and it's one of the more important near-term partners for Uber. So, you know, I guess we'll have to continue to monitor that closely and I guess, you know, lean on your buddy Omega. Again,
This is a theoretical hypothetical scenario. Let's say that we are correct. The regulatory environment stops them from launching a paid service in San Francisco. And then you and I are sitting here, we're getting over our turkey coma, getting ready hopefully to go to London, and then all of a sudden across the terminal, Uber-Nuro launch service in Houston. What is the reaction from that if there was a pivot because of the regulatory environment to Texas where there's a lot clearer path to doing this? They could launch in Texas by the end of the year in Houston if the technology is ready. So, I want to put that out there. What would the reaction be?
I think the reaction would be very positive for all three of these companies and you just say, 'Look, you know, we don't need to deal with California. We can get things going and it doesn't have to be a ton of cars.' Like, if you can get something launched in any market, 25, 30 cars launched, you know, ideally with not a driver in there, we'll see, by the end of the year, I don't care whether it's California, Houston, or you know, wherever, you know, Peoria [laughter], get something on the tape. And then you kind of move forward to, you know, is Lucid getting to that point where they can start this program to get to the 35,000 units, which would be huge for Lucid as a company, obviously huge for Nuro and getting to their next, you know, kind of wave of expansion. And obviously a big positive for Uber as well where there's like I talked about before, like not a lot of, you know, scale progress that is likely over the next 12 months.
You're right because if Lucid can figure out the business, figure out the manufacturing and hit the manufacturing targets, Uber has a very clear line of sight to vehicles. And as you and I know, that's one of the most difficult things that happens in this industry. Let's put this in context one more time. 35,000 car program. The deliveries that Lucid had in this quarter was 4,000, right? So, this is, you know, this is a big deal for Lucid. I think they get that. So, we wish them the best and obviously as that production line gets going, we'd love to visit it.
Love to visit it. And then I'll ask this question here for the record. At some point, does Lucid just become a contract manufacturer for robo taxis and shut down the sedan and gravity business? That's something to watch.
We'll have to see. Let's move on to another. I want to touch briefly on this. DoorDash, which doesn't move people around, it moves products, food, reported. Now, here's a company, very smart management team, you know, announced like last year about investing in technology and autonomy. Stock I think was challenged by that because obviously investment, which is what you should do, sometimes some type of investors don't like that. But I think, you know, you and I certainly believe in the future of autonomy. I've mentioned this before in this call, we do these calls, there's the earnings call and then they do a call with analysts afterwards. And what was, and I get on these calls, and what was surprising is just the lack of optimism or potential that I saw for autonomy for food. I'm just curious, Grayson, from your standpoint, you know, do you think food, let's just talk about food, not the other things, the other products that they deliver, and, you know, let's go beyond Serve and beyond the DoorDashes or whatever the robots are that DoorDash has, because they also have a partnership with Waymo, right? Where people are putting cars in the trunks of Waymos. Is this a realistic market over the next 5 years?
Yes, absolutely. And I'll tell you the reason, and I'm not dunking on anybody, but I'll tell you the reason, and it hasn't been discussed outside of wonky policy circles. Rob pointed this out. When you start doing delivery, you're starting to cut down on deadhead miles, and that helps you from a regulatory standpoint in certain localities. That is the big thing to watch there. So, when you're delivering food, you're cutting down on deadhead miles. That's a positive regulatory. Now that we have that said, from a consumer standpoint, I love it. I don't have to talk to anybody. I can just go out. I can hit the let's get the open button on my phone. Get the burrito out of the back. Go in the house. This is great to me. Yes, it makes sense. I don't want to have to talk to anybody. And then you don't want to feel bad. I don't have any cash. How do I tip the person? Because I got news for you. America has tipping fatigue.
I mean, the cost fatigue as well. I mean, you look at what Uber Eats and DoorDash are charging you for delivering some of this food. The costs are high. Now, you can advertise what could potentially be a purpose-driven or purpose-built vehicle. And I'm not talking about like what Nuro did where it's kind of like not really a car and it's on the road doing 20 miles an hour. You know, like an actual car, but purpose-built, you know, for transmitting goods and services. Or let's like really look out to the future and say you have your personally owned private vehicle and you're just sending your own vehicle, you know, to, you know, the local restaurant and, you know, to pick up the
Food for you. I mean, these are things that I think are on the horizon and are just a natural incremental revenue offshoot from the massive, the billions of dollars of investment that are already being made. So, props to DoorDash for having the foresight to invest there. And I'd also note that whether it's DoorDash or Uber, this is probably an area, unlike moving people around, where Waymo and Tesla can effectively, and even Zoox if they're successful, cut them out of the equation altogether. In this world where they have these relationships with the restaurants and the retailers, it's more likely that autonomy can only help DoorDash and Uber as opposed to be a potential threat.
Yes and no. Let's give you an example. If I could send my Tesla to Whole Foods, they put the groceries in and send it back, that's a game changer for me. That's awesome. That benefits Amazon. That's great. But the likelihood of me sending it to a restaurant to pick something up, and if it doesn't have a dedicated spot to go, you have a problem there. Where Uber, with Uber and DoorDash already have that relationship, that's a benefit to them. So perhaps your Teslas of the world, they take the grocery store, the Costco run stuff, and your DoorDash, your Ubers continue the restaurant stuff until you get some of these large restaurant chains that invest in this and probably start to say, 'No, we don't want to pay your fees.' Because if that does happen, and all of a sudden I can send my Tesla, you can send your Tesla, your mom could send her Tesla, all of a sudden those margins start to compress because the restaurants aren't going to pay the fees anymore. So that's something to watch there.
