John Krafcik, the former auto industry executive who took over Google’s autonomous car project in 2015, is stepping down as CEO of Waymo. Waymo, which became a separate subsidiary of Alphabet in 2016, accomplished a lot during Krafcik’s five and a half year term. Still, Krafcik failed to meet the high expectations he faced when he took over.
Until 2015, the Google autonomous car project was led by engineer Chris Urmson. At that point, Google CEO Larry Page believed that the technology was almost ready for commercialization, so he hired a guy from the car – Krafcik – to manage the practicalities of turning the technology into a shipping product.
Krafcik spent his early years negotiating partnerships with automakers. Negotiations on a possible partnership with Ford failed in early 2016. Krafcik then struck a smaller deal with Fiat Chrysler to buy 100 Pacifica hybrid minivans – a deal that was later expanded to 500 minivans.
In early 2018, Waymo announced plans to buy “up to” 20,000 Jaguar I-PACE electric cars and “up to” 62,000 more Pacifics. At the same time, Waymo said it planned to launch a driverless commercial taxi service before the end of 2018.
In short, Waymo expected its autonomous taxi service to be big business now.
Things did not go according to plan
If that had happened, Krafcik would have been well positioned to lead Waymo as he expanded from a small pilot project in Arizona to a big deal with tens of thousands of vehicles in dozens of cities. With a deep understanding of automotive logistics and strong relationships within the automotive industry, Krafcik could have ensured that the process of integrating Waymo’s technology into Jaguar and Chrysler vehicles, and then manufacturing several of them, went smoothly.
But that didn’t happen because the commercialization of autonomous technology proved to be more difficult than Waymo’s leaders – and many outside analysts, including myself – expected in 2018. Waymo launched a commercial service in December 2018, but came with a big asterisk: at launch, all vehicles still had a security driver behind the wheel, almost guaranteeing that the service would not be profitable.
It would take almost two more years – until October 2020 – for Waymo to stop using security drivers for most commercial travel. There are now some signs that Waymo’s service is finally expanding beyond its initial market. In recent months, the company has stepped up testing in San Francisco, sparking speculation that Bay Area could be Waymo’s second market after Phoenix.
But the pace of growth looks glacial compared to the expectations the company set a few years ago. A spokeswoman for Waymo told Ars that the company’s fleet has “well over 600 vehicles in all of our locations”. Six hundred vehicles is less than 1 percent of the 82,000 vehicles that Waymo ordered three years ago.
It is not clear why. Perhaps Waymo is gradually expanding for security reasons. Perhaps the vehicles require so much human supervision at the rear end that the service is unprofitable, even without a security driver. It may take some time for Waymo to build the necessary infrastructure to support thousands of vehicles in several cities.
And to be fair, it is not clear whether this is Krafcik’s fault. It is possible that autonomous driving is just an inherently difficult problem and Waymo would have endeavored to bring its technology to the market under any leader. It’s not like anyone else in the industry has passed Waymo.
But the slow pace of autonomous driving technology certainly makes Krafcik’s auto industry experience less relevant. Whatever the restrictions on Waymo’s growth, an inadequate supply of vehicles is certainly not among them.
Krafcik will be succeeded by two longtime Waymo executives who will serve as co-CEOs. Dmitri Dolgov is an engineer who has been part of Google’s autonomous car project since 2009 and was previously Chief Technology Officer at Waymo. Tekedra Mawakana joined Waymo to lead its policy department in 2017 and became Director of Operations in 2019. Dolgov will focus on improving Waymo’s technology, while Mawakana will be responsible for business strategy.