John Krafcik, the former auto industry exec who took over Google’s self-driving car project in 2015, is stepping down as CEO of Waymo. Waymo, which spun off as a separate Alphabet subsidiary in 2016, accomplished a lot during Krafcik’s five-and-a-half-year tenure. Still, Krafcik failed to meet the lofty expectations he faced when he took the helm.
Until 2015, the Google self-driving car project was led by engineer Chris Urmson. At that point, Google CEO Larry Page believed the technology was nearly ready for commercialization, so he hired a car guy—Krafcik—to manage the practicalities of turning the technology into a shipping product.
Krafcik spent his first few years negotiating partnerships with automakers. Talks over a potential partnership with Ford fell apart in early 2016. Krafcik then inked a smaller deal with Fiat Chrysler to buy 100 hybrid Pacifica 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 Pacificas. Around the same time, Waymo said it planned to launch a driverless commercial taxi service before the end of 2018.
In short, Waymo expected its self-driving taxi service to be a big business by around now.
Things haven’t gone according to plan
If that had happened, Krafcik would have been well-positioned to lead Waymo as it scaled up from a small pilot project in Arizona to a large business with tens of thousands of vehicles in dozens of cities. With a deep understanding of auto industry logistics and strong relationships within the auto industry, Krafcik could have ensured that the process of integrating Waymo’s technology into Jaguar and Chrysler vehicles, and then manufacturing a bunch of them, went smoothly.
But that didn’t happen because commercializing self-driving technology proved to be more difficult than Waymo’s leaders—and a lot of outside analysts, including me—expected in 2018. Waymo did launch a commercial service in December 2018, but it came with a big asterisk: at launch all vehicles still had a safety driver behind the wheel, all but ensuring the service would be unprofitable.
It would take almost two more years—until October 2020—for Waymo to stop using safety drivers for most commercial rides. 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, prompting speculation that the Bay Area could be Waymo’s second market after Phoenix.
But the pace of growth seems glacial compared to the expectations the company set a few years ago. A Waymo spokeswoman…
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