September 21, 2026 - Robotaxis Could Help Carry EVs This Decade

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for September 21, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

It's no secret that the market for electric vehicles in the U.S. is far smaller than most of the industry had hoped for in 2020. While many had projected upwards of 20% market share by now, it's still hovering around 6% due to multiple factors. That has caused many EV programs to be scaled back or canceled. But there is one key segment of the market that is both growing and dependent on electrification: robotaxis. 

EVs are the preferred platform for these highly automated vehicles for several reasons. First is the power requirements of all the sensors and compute necessary to make a vehicle drive itself around. A full suite of cameras, radar, and lidar, along with the powerful compute platforms to process all the data, can easily consume 1.5 to 3 kW, pretty much all that a typical 12-volt electrical system can provide without powering any other systems. Since these vehicles operate mostly in cities and the services remain expensive, keeping down operating costs is also key, and EVs help here. 

Thus, many of the companies that have invested heavily in EVs are also targeting deals with automated driving system developers to provide vehicle platforms. During an event in California, Jose Munoz said that building robotaxis is profitable and the automaker will be supplying tens of thousands of Ioniq 5s to Waymo from its Georgia factory beginning in the fourth quarter. Hyundai also supplies the same vehicle platform to its own robotaxi arm, Motional, as well as to AVRide. Other EV startups are also targeting this segment, including Rivian, which has a deal to provide 50,000 R2s to Uber. Uber also has a separate deal with Lucid and Nuro to get a similar number of the Lucid Gravity and upcoming Cosmos. 

It remains unclear when the robotaxi service business will become profitable, but like gold rushes of the 19th century and the AI rush of the 2020s, it's the suppliers of picks, shovels, and blue jeans, like Hyundai, Rivian, and Nvidia, that are likely to profit first. 

Thanks for listening.