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Ben Thompson is an American technology analyst who writes a widely read newsletter called Stratechery. He also used to live in Taipei, where he lived continuously for 12 years.
But this past summer he moved back to Wisconsin, trading his urban life for a suburban one. And so his latest article starts with a more personal note, talking about what it's like to return to the US (though the larger point of the post is the intersection of robotaxis and suburbia).
I spent a summer in Taipei in my early 20's and grew to love the place after the first few weeks, and so I was expecting his re-acclimation to have been a bit more jarring. But it turns out, Ben is happy to be back and, in particular, he's happy to be back living in the suburbs.
His post even goes on to question whether the mobility transformations we are seeing today might be about to cement some kind of "end to urbanism":
What is worth considering, however, is if the last wave of urbanism, which started in the 1990s and peaked in the 2010s, might be the last, at least in the United States (Asia and its massive metropolises are another story). The potential physical transformation in transportation and delivery I am talking about is simply completing the story that started with entertainment and television in the first wave of suburbia, and then information and interactivity via the Internet, particularly since COVID. There are real benefits to being in person, just like there are to living in the city, but the relative delta to working remote or living in the suburbs has decreased dramatically; meanwhile, offices and urban living can never match the advantages inherent to working from a big home with a big yard.
Whether or not this is good thing is a separate discussion; I will say it has been good for me, and it’s poised to get even better.
I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. I initially made the mistake of going to university in Waterloo, but I immediately started to envy my friends who were living downtown and going to the University of Toronto. So I course-corrected and transferred.
When it came time to go to grad school, I had learned my lesson: a proper urban center was a non-negotiable item. So I moved to Philadelphia and absolutely fell in love with the city's walkability, historic scale, and nightlife. It also didn't hurt that I could take a Chinatown bus to Manhattan for $10.
In fact, when I temporarily returned to the suburbs of Toronto after school — before once again moving into the city — I vividly remember missing Philly. I missed its urbanity. I missed walking everywhere. It was either that, or I just missed the good old "special" at Bob and Barbara's on South Street.
Since moving back to Toronto after school, I have yet to live beyond the confines of High Park, St. Clair Avenue, and the Don River. Maybe one day I will, or maybe I won't. The oldest parts of our city have always felt the most like home to me.
Sure, I also have a deep love for the mountains, but when I daydream about places where I could really live, my mind always goes to big cities like Paris, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro (city and mountains!).
I'm not here to impose my views (just write about them). We all have our lifestyle preferences. And I can appreciate that, for many, like Ben, the suburbs offer a compelling value proposition. His view is also supported by history: new technologies do often have a decentralizing effect on cities.
Cover photo by TangChi Lee on Unsplash
I watched Tesla's We, Robot event last night. As many of you know, Elon and his team showcased a Cybercab, Robovan, and a humanoid robot that dances funny, all of which will be available in the market for purchase at some unknowable date in the future. What was obvious is that Elon himself has no clear idea of when this will be.
What I will say, though, is that the designs look cool. The Cybercab looks like a Porsche and a Cybertruck had a love child, and the Robovan looks like an Art Deco rendition of what the future is supposed to be like. I first wondered why they'd create a robotaxi with only two seats. But thinking about it now, most Uber rides probably only have 1-2 passengers.
A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.
In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.
But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.
I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.
The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.
Ben Thompson is an American technology analyst who writes a widely read newsletter called Stratechery. He also used to live in Taipei, where he lived continuously for 12 years.
But this past summer he moved back to Wisconsin, trading his urban life for a suburban one. And so his latest article starts with a more personal note, talking about what it's like to return to the US (though the larger point of the post is the intersection of robotaxis and suburbia).
I spent a summer in Taipei in my early 20's and grew to love the place after the first few weeks, and so I was expecting his re-acclimation to have been a bit more jarring. But it turns out, Ben is happy to be back and, in particular, he's happy to be back living in the suburbs.
His post even goes on to question whether the mobility transformations we are seeing today might be about to cement some kind of "end to urbanism":
What is worth considering, however, is if the last wave of urbanism, which started in the 1990s and peaked in the 2010s, might be the last, at least in the United States (Asia and its massive metropolises are another story). The potential physical transformation in transportation and delivery I am talking about is simply completing the story that started with entertainment and television in the first wave of suburbia, and then information and interactivity via the Internet, particularly since COVID. There are real benefits to being in person, just like there are to living in the city, but the relative delta to working remote or living in the suburbs has decreased dramatically; meanwhile, offices and urban living can never match the advantages inherent to working from a big home with a big yard.
Whether or not this is good thing is a separate discussion; I will say it has been good for me, and it’s poised to get even better.
I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. I initially made the mistake of going to university in Waterloo, but I immediately started to envy my friends who were living downtown and going to the University of Toronto. So I course-corrected and transferred.
When it came time to go to grad school, I had learned my lesson: a proper urban center was a non-negotiable item. So I moved to Philadelphia and absolutely fell in love with the city's walkability, historic scale, and nightlife. It also didn't hurt that I could take a Chinatown bus to Manhattan for $10.
In fact, when I temporarily returned to the suburbs of Toronto after school — before once again moving into the city — I vividly remember missing Philly. I missed its urbanity. I missed walking everywhere. It was either that, or I just missed the good old "special" at Bob and Barbara's on South Street.
Since moving back to Toronto after school, I have yet to live beyond the confines of High Park, St. Clair Avenue, and the Don River. Maybe one day I will, or maybe I won't. The oldest parts of our city have always felt the most like home to me.
Sure, I also have a deep love for the mountains, but when I daydream about places where I could really live, my mind always goes to big cities like Paris, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro (city and mountains!).
I'm not here to impose my views (just write about them). We all have our lifestyle preferences. And I can appreciate that, for many, like Ben, the suburbs offer a compelling value proposition. His view is also supported by history: new technologies do often have a decentralizing effect on cities.
Cover photo by TangChi Lee on Unsplash
I watched Tesla's We, Robot event last night. As many of you know, Elon and his team showcased a Cybercab, Robovan, and a humanoid robot that dances funny, all of which will be available in the market for purchase at some unknowable date in the future. What was obvious is that Elon himself has no clear idea of when this will be.
What I will say, though, is that the designs look cool. The Cybercab looks like a Porsche and a Cybertruck had a love child, and the Robovan looks like an Art Deco rendition of what the future is supposed to be like. I first wondered why they'd create a robotaxi with only two seats. But thinking about it now, most Uber rides probably only have 1-2 passengers.
A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.
In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.
But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.
I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.
The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.
Despite these pretty designs, the overwhelming reaction to the event seems to be one of disappointment. We've heard what was said before. Public transportation is bad (I disagree). Autonomy will free up your time and remove unnecessary parking spaces from our cities (allowing for more public space). And soon you'll be able to put your under-utilized car to work and earn extra cash.
Cool, but when?
Waymo and Uber are not, as far as I know, hosting similarly flashy events. But as far as I can tell, they're making meaningful progress in advancing toward full autonomy. As of June of this year, Waymo had already logged over 22 million rider-only miles. And in September, they announced a partnership that would bring AVs to Austin and Atlanta by way of the Uber app.
At this point in the hype cycle, I don't think anyone is interested in hearing promises about what the future of autonomy will be like, especially without any firm dates. They want to know: Are we there yet? So I think it's no surprise that people, including investors, weren't all that pumped up by the event.
On a more important note, Tesla had bicycles with brightly illuminated wheels circulating around their event set (at Warner Bros.) to presumably demonstrate that their Cybercabs can successfully navigate around moving objects (when brightly illuminated). If you missed them, look at the 29 second mark in the below video:
https://youtu.be/Mu-eK72ioDk?si=JeU4z8Q5HLI-f9r3&t=29
I can't be the only one who thought: "What are those? Now, that's what I want!" So I've asked Elon when they'll be available and when I can buy one. I'll keep you all posted on his response.
Despite these pretty designs, the overwhelming reaction to the event seems to be one of disappointment. We've heard what was said before. Public transportation is bad (I disagree). Autonomy will free up your time and remove unnecessary parking spaces from our cities (allowing for more public space). And soon you'll be able to put your under-utilized car to work and earn extra cash.
Cool, but when?
Waymo and Uber are not, as far as I know, hosting similarly flashy events. But as far as I can tell, they're making meaningful progress in advancing toward full autonomy. As of June of this year, Waymo had already logged over 22 million rider-only miles. And in September, they announced a partnership that would bring AVs to Austin and Atlanta by way of the Uber app.
At this point in the hype cycle, I don't think anyone is interested in hearing promises about what the future of autonomy will be like, especially without any firm dates. They want to know: Are we there yet? So I think it's no surprise that people, including investors, weren't all that pumped up by the event.
On a more important note, Tesla had bicycles with brightly illuminated wheels circulating around their event set (at Warner Bros.) to presumably demonstrate that their Cybercabs can successfully navigate around moving objects (when brightly illuminated). If you missed them, look at the 29 second mark in the below video:
https://youtu.be/Mu-eK72ioDk?si=JeU4z8Q5HLI-f9r3&t=29
I can't be the only one who thought: "What are those? Now, that's what I want!" So I've asked Elon when they'll be available and when I can buy one. I'll keep you all posted on his response.
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