While Nvidia has dominated the L2+ and L3/L4 hardware announcements this year, they are not the only game is town as evidenced by the Horizon Robotics design wins in China and Rivian’s own processor that we discuss in the news items below. Chinese start-up, SiEngine, also started production of its own ADAS processor.
DVN’s Jurgen Dickmann has tested the Wayve robotaxi in Stuttgart and was impressed on how it handled some complex corner cases. There is a separate report on this on our website this month. Waymo already crossed 450K weekly paid rides and 2026 will be the year of major robotaxi service scale ups and it will be particularly interesting to watch in Europe as Chinese robotaxi players compete with Waymo and Wayve. In the US, we should also see Zoox expand in Austin and Miami and Tesla will also continue to expand operations.
We should also expect to see more consumer L3 models start operation in 2026. China’s MIIT has just given Xpeng, Changan and Arcfox (BAIC) approval for their L3 systems to operate on designated routes while other OEMs also have test licenses to operate in certain cities. The liability issues for L3 outside of China have still to be addressed before broader L3 operation becomes viable.
The agenda for our next Detroit workshop in March 2026 on AEB L2++ and robotaxi/robotruck technologies is out and If you are interested to exhibit/present please contact me.
Martin Booth
DVN USA Representative
mbooth@drivingvisionnews.com
