This article is part of our Inno Awards feature. Glydways has been honored under the autonomous vehicles category. Check out the other Inno Awards honorees here.
What if the future of autonomous transportation isn’t just fleets of cars zooming around city streets but also small, on-demand shuttles zipping along dedicated paths?
Glydways is betting on the latter by flipping the robotaxi concept into a shuttle service that alleviates congestion by taking its vehicles off of shared roadways.
“The future of mobility should be the fusion of open and closed roads, because it’s one and the same technology. That’s where we are moving,” CEO Gokul Hemmady said.
The South San Francisco startup has been developing an autonomous shuttle system since 2016 and its strategy has helped the company win two Bay Area transit projects: one in San Jose and another in Contra Costa County.
Its shuttles can transport up to four passengers at a time and are also roomy enough for luggage, bicycles and wheelchairs.
The San Jose project will transport people across a 3.5-mile route between Diridon Station and Mineta Airport.
In Contra Costa County, its shuttles will run along 28 miles connecting four cities: Pittsburg, Antioch, Oakley and Brentwood.
Founded in 2016 by Chief Strategy Officer Mark Seeger, the company’s approach is markedly different from major competitors.
Autonomous vehicles have been allowed on public roads for testing in California since 2018, but only two companies have received regulatory approval to launch fully driverless commercial passenger services in the state: Google-owned Waymo and GM-owned Cruise, though Cruise subsequently lost its permit after one of its vehicles dragged a pedestrian down a street in San Francisco last year.
Trust and safety are among the concerns that critics of autonomous vehicles have, alongside increased congestion from putting more cars on the road, and the privatization of public transportation and infrastructure.
“What we are really wanting to do is raise the whole transit ecosystem. So, by connecting Diridon station to the airport, we believe that other modes of transit that go into Diridon Station will see an uplift in ridership,” Hemmady said. “There’s no thought about replacing anything in our in our minds.”
The mainstream route to autonomous cars has also proven to be an incredibly difficult and expensive endeavor.
For years, Tesla chief Elon Musk has also promised its electric cars would transform into fleets of robotaxis but its software is still considered to be at a lower level of autonomy which requires substantial human intervention. Regulators have claimed Tesla’s marketing may be deceptive.
Uber and Lyft also poured millions into their own autonomous car development, staking their future profitability on fleets of robotaxis, as well, only to sell off those divisions before going public.
While Glydways’ shuttles aren’t operational yet, the company expects the San Jose and Contra Costa projects to break ground within a few years.
The company anticipates launching service in San Jose by 2029 and in Contra Costa by 2028.
And if everything works out as planned, Glydways shuttles could be zooming all around the Bay Area one day.
“It is certainly in our dreams to do that,” Hemmady said, and “to make this kind of dream a reality, of a Bay Area wide network, we understand that this is something that we need a strong partnership with the public sector to do that.”
About Glydways
Location: South San Francisco
Industries: Autonomous vehicles
Founder: Chief Strategy Officer Mark Seeger
Founded: 2016
Funding: Over $100 million
Major investors: Khosla Ventures, Gates Frontier, Sam Altman’s Apollo Projects, New Science Ventures, ACS Group, Suzuki, ENEOS Holdings, MItsui Chemicals..
Why they were chosen: Glydways has taken an unconventional approach to autonomous transportation but is scooping up potentially lucrative contracts with local governments, proving that you don’t have to be first to market if you can deliver a safe and reliable service.
