Robo Taxi Experiencing Bump in The Road: Pandemic Hit The Industry Hard

Since the invention of wheels to advancements in autonomous vehicles, the transportation industry has witnessed uncountable innovations. The incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) into automotive is the biggest achievement in the transportation sector and the era of innovations has just begun.

What lay ahead of us is much cooler. There will be a successful demonstration of hyperloop pods and the concept that had kept us intrigued for a long time, Robo taxi, is here. The shared, autonomous vehicles are now roaming around the roads and set to completely revolutionize how we travel and design our smart cities in the coming years.

According to Allied Market Research, the Robo taxi market is expected to reach $38.61 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 67.8% from 2023 to 2030. That’s because of the demand for fuel-efficient and emission-free vehicles and the need for better road safety & traffic control.

The adoption of Robo taxis would replace ownership of the car to sharing among masses. The world will witness growth in ride-sharing and advancements in automation would nothing but help this cause. Silicon Valley is the first to experience this technological disruption. However, China and other developing economies are not so behind. For instance, while the people debate who would win the race China or the U.S., Asia’s most acknowledged AI startup, Momenta has declared that Robo taxis would be completely driverless and profitable business by 2024.

Compared to tech giants such as Tesla and Uber, Momenta is much younger. However, in merely four years, it has specialized in software solutions for driverless vehicles and aims to launch the infrastructure for autonomous vehicles in 2024 and even boasted that some of the vehicles would be driverless as soon as 2022.

However, the outbreak of Covid-19 has hit the Robo taxi industry harder than ever. In fact, major market investors have delayed their projects due to the pandemic. For instance, Ford has announced to push back the launch of its upcoming Robo taxi project and driverless delivery services from 2021 to 2022. The company cleared that this delay is solely due to economic conditions caused because of the pandemic. In addition, the company spokesperson stated that this additional time would be used for research to determine change in customer behaviors and it would aid the company to develop a go-to-market strategy to meet the demand of customers.

Ford said that this delay would enable it to make sure that the company offers consumer peace of mind in knowing that the packages are well protected and in a safe environment. In addition, it announced that the delay is the result of the financial situation for the first quarter of 2020, which is greatly affected by the pandemic and it has suffered around $2 billion loss in the quarter.

Such financial losses are not limited to Ford. Majority of the automobile companies are suffering such troubles, which is bound to delay the previous commitments that are made to launch driverless Robo taxis on the road. However, Robo taxis are beyond doubt is the next big thing in the transportation sector. Thus, it would soon regain its strength and the projects would soon resume bringing the most-awaited revolution in the sector.  

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