I went to CES for Robotaxis. I left convinced of Waymo’s advance.

The race for dominance in the robo-taxi industry may not be as tight as some companies suggest.

Lloyd Lee, a Business Insider reporter covering robotaxis and emerging mobility technologies, visited CES for the first time to check out autonomous service from Zoox, Vay and other vendors. Lee, who has taken a few rides with robotaxis that recently entered the market, said the experience reinforced his view that one company appears to be significantly ahead — and that the industry still faces major hurdles before the vehicles can truly go mainstream.

In the Q&A below with BI News chief Steve Russolillo, Lee explains what he took away from CES, the most impressive technology he saw, and how that experience will shape his coverage in the year to come.

Steve Russolillo: Lloyd, this is your first time at CES. What are your impressions and main lessons from the event?

Lloyd Lee: First, CES is a massive event. It’s humanly impossible to stop at every booth, no matter how activist you are with your time. Secondly, I was struck by the space that the convention gave to the automobile. I agree with what Paul Costa, a 25-year Apple veteran who worked on the company’s self-driving car project and now works at Ford, told me: CES has become as much a car show as it remains a technology show.

Russolillo: What’s the craziest, craziest new technology you’ve seen?

Lee: Hyundai Motor Group’s booth featured a truly impressive demonstration of its autonomy efforts, from electric vehicle charging stations and robo-taxis to robotic arms and humanoid robots. Boston Dynamics, a unit of Hyundai, presented its humanoid robot Atlas on the stand. The way he activates and rises is both terrifying and impressive.

Russolillo: You cover robotaxis for BI and had the opportunity to test two different robotaxis this week. What struck you the most?

Lee: I tried two robotaxi services for the first time, including Amazon’s Zoox. There are obviously a lot of smart people working on this technology. But I have to say: trying these services only made me realize 1.) how far ahead Waymo is or at least appears to be, and 2.) how difficult it is to make a profitable business case for robotaxis right now.

Achieving autonomous driving is only part of the challenge. There’s also the operational side — like scaling and fleet management — that Waymo had to develop to help robotaxis feel like a true autonomous ride-sharing service that you can use every day. (That’s if you live in the city where Waymo operates.) And even then, we know Waymo burns through cash for its service.

Russolillo: What are some of the predictions you’ve heard from sources regarding technology, AI and business?

Lee: Chris Ahn, a principal at Deloitte with expertise in software-defined vehicles, raised some interesting points.

1. When it comes to self-driving technology in personal vehicles, not every automaker will pursue full autonomy in the same way a Tesla or Rivian might. Instead, Ahn said they’re going to have to figure out what their customers want and what level of autonomy they think they need: “If I’m an OEM and I know that most of my consumer bases are suburbanites who have two kids and families and things like that – what level of autonomy do I need for them and to achieve that level of autonomy, is it worth adding the cost of a LiDAR system to my bill of materials?”
2. Ahn foresees a conversion between all emerging technologies from the last half-decade. “Right now, we’re having separate conversations between humanoid robotics, generative/agentic AI, and software-defined vehicles,” he told me. “I think these three terms will converge. My role will no longer be software-defined vehicles. It will be something like emerging technologies or mobility technologies. I don’t know.”

Russolillo: Which startup you had never heard of before really stole the show and impressed you?

Lee: Maybe less stole the show, but I thought Vay, a German startup developing a driverless car rental service, reminded me that there was still room for some contrarian voices in the driverless space. Remote driving is the big bogeyman for robotaxi companies. You don’t want to be caught using it. The entire economic model of this startup is built around it. Vay uses remote driving – with the potential for autonomy in the future – for a small fraction of the overall driving experience: delivering the car to a renter without a human inside. It was a “Um, I never thought of that” moment.

Russolillo: What have you learned that could change the way you approach your BI technology coverage?

Lee: Generally speaking, emerging technologies such as humanoid robots, self-driving cars and, more generally, AI, contain many unknowns and uncertainties. And business leaders in these fields can be evasive when you ask for details, or they simply don’t know the answer. Maybe both. My instinct is to resolve this ambiguity which, in this space, will not always be realistic. Instead I should write has uncertainty, not through it. Name the ambiguity, build the story around it.