This is the Elon Musk Podcast, your daily hit of what is really going on at Tesla, SpaceX X AI, and the rest of the Musk universe. I'm your host Will Walden, and I have covered Elon Musk for more than five years, spent a year on the ground at SpaceX, Starbase during early Starship development, and before this I spent my career as a software developer working with billion dollar companies.
I've also built and sold my own businesses and now I make content and help other people grow their companies. Now on this show, I used that experience to break down the news, filter out all the noise and give you clear context you can actually use. Waymo begins testing in Minneapolis with its white Jaguar. I pace, SU VS and Zeker RT vehicles rolling out under human control now. The company says that is the first step toward ride hailing in the city once it proves
performance on local streets. Now today, you'll hear what Waymo plans to do, how Minnesota officials and drivers reacted, why winter conditions are the ultimate hurdle for driverless vehicles. A Waymo spokesperson told us that the goal is not only testing, but ride hailing. How will that path play out in a city known for ice, snow, very cold weather and complex traffic patterns? So here's the plan for today. I'll explain what we MO is doing in Minneapolis and how the phased rollout works.
Then walk through the safety claims, illegal stuff, labor concerns in the city's expectations. And then we're going to talk about an analysis of what winter conditions and local policy will demand before riders can tap a button for a driverless car. And we'll get right into that after this very short break. We MO's Twin Cities move starts with manual driving, then supervised autonomy, then
potential public rides. The company's product communications manager told us that they intend to offer ride hailing in Minneapolis, not just testing. Testing began Thursday morning with no date sent for passenger service, which signals A validation first approach before they invite normal people like you and I into these vehicles. Now here's how the rollout works on the street.
First, a human driver sits behind the wheel to collect data and map the city streets using the full sensor arrays and suite of cameras, radar and LIDAR to build a 360° picture of the city. And after mapping, the vehicle drives the route while the human remains behind the wheel to take control if needed. This creates repeatable routes and edge cases for libraries that Waymo can analyze before it asks regulators and the public. For rider only, ServiceNow Minneapolis is a deliberate choice.
The company calls winter a big question, so it wants a dense urban area with serious coal to test whether it's 6th generation. AI and cleaning mechanisms can keep sensors clear and decision making stable now, starting in the urban core, then expanding outward let's the team validate in high complexity traffic before it scales to wider coverage. Now this is an effort to answer the hardest problem in one of the hardest environments first. And safety is the center of Waymo's pitch here.
They point to its record in other cities setting fewer injury crashes and fewer pedestrian injury crashes compared with human drivers over the same distance. Those are directional claims that set expectations for local officials and riders who will ask about crash rates, near misses and emergency vehicle interactions. And if Minneapolis sees similar results during supervised testing, that'll support the case for a limited, then broader
rider rollout over time. And Minneapolis law does not explicitly allow or prohibit autonomous vehicle testing, according to the state Transportation department. That means the next legislative session will likely take up EV policy with agencies asking to be part of this discussion. And a clear framework would set responsibilities for companies reporting requirements for incidents and rules for when a vehicle can operate without a human at the driver's seat.
Lawmakers will weigh local transit priorities and workforce efforts while they draft these rules. A labor concerns surfaced immediately. The Minnesota Uber Lyft Drivers Association said driverless cars could threaten income for drivers and faulted companies for making deployment decisions without community input. The group also raised a performance question specific to Minnesota's climate, arguing that the technology is unproven on icy roads in a winter traffic.
Those questions will press Waymo to share test data, incident logs and performance envelopes for low visibility and low friction conditions. Now, city officials see some trade-offs here. A Minneapolis spokesperson told us that the city wants safe streets and efficient traffic, and it'll keep talking with Waymo as testing begins with human drivers. The city also raised a basic question. If ride hail grows, how does that interact with public transit goals in mode shift?
Now my analysis on this is that Minneapolis will want to measure any shift in bus or ride it rail ridership once EV trips are available, and it'll look for rules to keep pickup and drop off flows from clogging key corridors in the city. And if they see a downturn in bus and rail ridership, then they could start taxing driverless vehicles and ride hailing services to make up the lost revenue from bus and rail. Now, Waymo's current service footprint matters for
expectations of this new area. The company already runs rider service in warmer cities and climates and has partnerships with deliveries in the Phoenix area.
Recently expanded to Austin and Atlanta through the Uber app and the several other U.S. markets on its radar, including Washington DC, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Antonio, Seattle, Nashville, Orlando and Tampa, and also announced plans for cold weather cities like Boston, Detroit, Denver, New York City and also Buffalo. Minneapolis slots into that broader push is a winter test
site with dense urban streets. Now I expect Minneapolis to focus on performance during active snowfall freeze thaw cycles that leave rutted ice in early morning glare with partially obscured lane markings. Sensor cleaning is a real constraint for Waymo. Even with heating and hydrophobic coatings, slush and road salt will degrade lighter returns and camera clarity over time. Now, the mapping pass will help, but the real proof will be how the system handles refrozen
intersections. If it hits black ice, what does it do? What if it wants to turn into an unplowed alley? Will it just smash through the snow? And it'll also have inconsistent bike lane markings after a storm. How will Waymo deal with this? You know, and I've been digging through the analytics of the show and noticed that 37% of you are following this channel. And for you, I am forever grateful. And we're getting new followers all the time. So join up, join the community,
join the club here. But the other 63% of you haven't hit the follow or subscribe button yet. I've been an independent journalist covering Elon Musk, SpaceX, and tech for the last six years. And I'll continue for the next 10 years in this podcast. I've been doing the podcast for six years plus. All I ask from you is one second of your time. And all you have to do is hit the follower subscribe button on the platform you're on right now.
And I'll be extremely grateful and blessed to have you in this community. Thank you for your support. Now, local precedent exists here, and that matters for public comfort too. Southwest Transit has tested autonomous vehicles and it's on demand prime service in the suburbs with a human seated behind the wheel but not
actively driving. Riders have taken more than 17,000 trips in those vehicles with a very high satisfaction rate, which gives officials a nearby reference point of how people react to computer driven rides. It also gives lawmakers a Minnesota specific test case when they debate statewide rules. Now, community voices around the city reflect both optimism and
also caution. A City Council member said crash reduction and less need for parking could help, but flagged concern about systems still struggling to fully identify people. Now that puts a spotlight on vulnerable road users, so the next phase should include transparent reporting on how the system detects and responds to pedestrians, cyclists, scooter riders, skateboarders, E bikes,
anything on the road. Minneapolis will want data from the urban core, where those interactions happen consistently and constantly. And Waymo's team frame the arrival as more than just a test run. A spokesperson for the company told us that they are here to offer ride hailing in Minneapolis once the system proves itself not to pass through and leave. They're not just doing this to gather data then move to a
bigger city. And that sets a standard that the company will be asked to meet with service maps, hours and response times when it seeks a ride or only permit. And the quickest way to build trust is to publish the safety case, the route coverage and operation conditions before inviting any riders on board. And these vehicles are cool. They're Jaguar I paced SU, VS, and also Zeker RT models.
They have distinctive sensor stacks and roof hardware, so they're going to draw some attention, which makes them visible to drivers and pedestrians. Visibility is helpful during the learning period, but it also invites scrutiny. So I expect Waymo to run clear markings and keep training personnel on site during the early weeks to answer questions, log issues and collective feedback and also talk about bugs. Now, that feedback loop will shape the service map and the
weather policy moving forward. Also, there's regulatory stuff going on. State transportation officials expect the issue to come up in the next session, which means hearings, draft bills and stakeholder testimony could take
years. And if lawmakers set data sharing and incident reporting rules, Minneapolis could position itself as a national winter city proving ground for all AVS, including Tesla. With clear expectations around performance, insurance and roadway etiquette for pick up and drop off, companies will need to show they can operate within those rules while improving Traffic Safety and saving lives. But in the near term, the
testing geography is a big deal. Starting downtown puts the system in contact with buses, bike lanes, curbside loading, a lot of people walking in and out of the streets, jaywalking, people running across the street, bikes, anything, scooters, any sort of E bikes, any sort of skateboards, anything like that. They're going to be everywhere and expanding outward will add freeway merges eventually.
Bridges that ice before regular roads and neighborhood streets where snow banks are very prominent in the winter time. And I expect the most challenging phase to be the late storm window when plows leave residual snow ridges that obscure lane lines and narrow travel lanes and unpredictable ways somebody's exiting the driveway and there's snow being plowed or have been plowed on either side of their driveway. You can't see that car coming out.
So what is going to happen when we MO encounter something like that? Public transit still an open question? City Council member told us what they told us about the service and how it means for transit ridership recovery. And you know what? That's a fair question. If AV Ride Hill cannibalizes short bus trips, that could reduce fare box revenue and slow ridership gains. So they could make a lot less
money. But if it feeds riders to transit stations, they can improve coverage and reduce car ownership too. To clean up the environment a little bit, many Yep this will need to watch trip patterns and work with Waymo and pick up zones near transit hubs. Now, my read on the timing here is pretty straightforward. Testing began with the human at the wheel and no pasture start date yet, which puts the emphasis on data collection
through the winter. If the system meets its performance targets across snow, ice and low visibility conditions, Waymo can ask to open a limited rioter program within a geofenced area, likely starting with smaller fleets in defined hours. Maybe if 10 vehicles and do it when it's daylight and clear. Clear up public reporting will help move that process forward. If they share all of their data with the city and the state, they're good to go. You know, I think this is a really big deal.
Tesla isn't there yet, but they will eventually head to Minneapolis. And Waymo has started supervised testing in Minneapolis with manual driving for mapping and data collection, plans to keep a human behind the wheel during early autonomous runs, and aims to offer ride hailing after it proves performance in winter and city traffic. State law has no explicit AV authorization, legislators expect to take up the issue, and local voices raise safety, labor
and transit corrections. The next phase depends on how the system handles that snow, handles that ice, and the dense urban interactions, and on what rules that Minneapolis sets for driver operations in the future. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.