Driverless cars are no longer confined to the realm of science fiction thanks to companies like Waymo developing commercial robotaxi services in many cities. And a number of automakers, big and small, are trying to bring the same level of autonomy to personally owned vehicles in the coming years.
If that happens, what kinds of things could you do with a personal AV? Maybe you’ll be able to send it to get food or run errands — the hope of a company called Autolane. Or, if you’re Tesla CEO Elon Musk, you think owners will want to roll their cars out into the world to offer rides to other people, creating a neat, almost effortless company.
Hebron Sher, co-founder of Dallas-based Zevo, is eager to capitalize on all of the above. The company has been running an EV-only fleet for just over a year and is now adding robotaxis, starting with a new company called Tensor.
Tensor is somewhat of an odd duck. The launch appeared earlier this year from an earlier Silicon Valley startup called AutoX, which also operated in China, and boldly claims it will be the first to sell a fully autonomous car to regular consumers — in 2026, no less. Zevo says it will buy up to 100 Tensor cars and add them to its network.
There aren’t many details on the timeline, and Tensor still has to show it can build cars at any kind of scale and reliability, which are huge hurdles that have tripped up many other newcomers in recent years. (The company said in a statement that “its path to shipping is driven by the pace of global regulatory approvals, not product restrictions.) If it works, Zevo customers could essentially borrow Tensor AVs in what amounts to a kind of decentralized robotaxi service.
The announcement echoes the many heady but ultimately unfulfilled promises made a decade ago when the self-driving car hype first peaked. But with actual robotaxi on the streets now, the idea seems a little more tangible this time.
“Tensor’s vision is to build a future where everyone has their own Artificial General Intelligence — a personal AGI that enables more time, freedom and autonomy,” said Hugo Fozzati, Tensor’s chief operating officer. “For us, this partnership with Zevo is not just a mass sale of our vehicles, but also enables individuals and small businesses to participate and benefit from AV business in this era of artificial intelligence.”
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It won’t be Sher’s first bet on an unproven company. In October, Zevo announced a non-binding order of 1,000 vans from ever-threatened EV startup Faraday Future;. Faraday, which has struggled for a decade to build and sell its flagship FF91 luxury SUV, has recently resorted to importing more affordable electric trucks from China and assembling them in the US. The company is supposed to assemble the first of these later this month.
Its willingness to bet on these companies stems from two reasons. One is cost: Tensor and Faraday Future have non-existent and poor track records, respectively, so they’re eager to make an attractive deal. More importantly, Sher said, these companies are more willing than a major OEM to allow Zevo to integrate tightly with their vehicle software—a critical factor if you’re going to allow peer-to-peer sharing, especially of robotaxis.
Not only is it harder to get legacy automakers to be as agile, but Sher said their “technology sucks.” With the new entrants, he said, “the synergy of the startup and the startup, kind of mixing, mixing and saying, ‘Let’s build a solution side-by-side…’ I think I really enjoyed that experience.”
Sher describes the deal with Tensor as a win-win for both companies: Tensor gets an early customer and a chance to prove that its robots are real and can do what it promises. Zevo gets a good deal and that deep software integration.
However, he admits it is a “calculated risk”.
“I think that’s what makes America great, you know, the fact that we encourage startups to take risks,” he said.
This story has been updated to reflect that AutoX was headquartered in Silicon Valley.
