SAN FRANCISCO: When Silicon Valley startup Phantom Auto was formed in 2017, it was one of many software suppliers hitching their fortunes to self-driving cars, confident that fleets of robotaxis would be using their technology within a few years.
The widescale deployment of robotaxis, once pegged by industry analysts to be a US$2 trillion industry by 2030, is now seen as further away due to a variety of hurdles, among them cost, complexity and unresolved legal and regulatory concerns. Postmates, a San Francisco-based goods delivery company, will use Phantom's technology inside fleets of over a hundred sidewalk robots as they navigate sidewalks and crosswalks to deliver lunches, snacks, or other goods to customers, beginning next year.
The catalyst was the continued uncertainty over regulation that jeopardized anticipated fleet orders by customers last year, Chief Operating Officer Jerome Rigaud told Reuters. That led to missed 2018 revenue projections and the removal of Navya's founder and CEO. Companies making software are better positioned to pivot than those doing hardware, experts agree. There has already been some consolidation in the crowded field of lidar, a key hardware component using laser light pulses to help vehicles"see," after some companies have struggled to raise new funds. Digital mapping is another area ripe for consolidation, Simoudis said.