Pole Position "UBS European & US Autos Daily" Hummel

Research evidence excerpt

Pole Position "UBS European & US Autos Daily" Hummel

The Driverless Download: "v2026.19"

See our full report here

Waymo recalls ~4,000 robotaxis following flooded road incident. Waymo issued a

voluntary OTA recall covering 3,791 fifth- and sixth-gen vehicles after an unoccupied

robotaxi entered a flooded road in San Antonio on April 20. NHTSA noted that “on

higher-speed roadways, the Waymo AV may slow but not stop” when encountering

potentially untraversable flooded lanes (Source).

Tesla authorized to test supervised FSD in Belgium. Belgium's Flemish region

authorized Tesla to begin testing its supervised FSD software on one vehicle, with the car

eligible to begin operating as soon as it receives a licence plate and insurance. The move

follows last month's provisional approval by the Dutch RDW, which made the

Netherlands the first EU country to allow FSD on public roads, and signals accelerating

EU regulatory momentum ahead of a potential broader summer rollout (Source).

Tesla's robotaxi rollout features high wait times, but vehicles on service still

limited. A Reuters investigation found that Tesla's robotaxi service in Dallas and

Houston had wait times of nearly 2 hours for a 20-min trip and faced repeated "high

service demand" or "no rides available" errors. A separate three-week April study in

Austin found wait times exceeded 15 min about half the time, exceeded 25 min more

than a quarter of the time, and showed no cars available 27% of the time. To us, this

speaks to the still limited amount of vehicles Tesla has put onto the service (particularly in

Dallas, Houston where we believe there are only a handful of vehicles, so those times are

misleading). The reporting also notes that on one ride, a Tesla robotaxi failed a left turn