Read on Twitter
Who else is ready to move on from 2020?Before then, here’s the @voyage year-in-review.
The @voyage team accomplished a ridiculous amount in a year that we’ll never forget, full of insane challenges.
Let's review the ups and downs. Thread…
February 2020We all know how the year began.
*shudder*
Thankfully folks like @eladgil and @stripe released excellent guides for startups like ourselves to follow to mitigate COVID-19.
We felt ready, but we weren’t, and life as we knew it changed overnight.
March 2020The @voyage team had to embrace the chaos. We grounded our fleet, closed our office, and prepared for a new way of working.
Here’s a few emails from our excellent COO, @theninaqi, to the team. @theninaqi showed incredible leadership during this confusing time.
April 2020Our Q1 board meeting featured an agenda item I never thought I’d cover while building a robotaxi startup: a pandemic.
Given the increasing clarity that the situation was only going to get worse, we began making material decisions (and fast).
Although these were distracting and scary times, the team kept on shipping…
May 2020
We shared our powerful partnership with @FiatChrysler_NA in May, delivering the last puzzle piece necessary to remove the Safety Driver in our robotaxis. https://news.voyage.auto/voyage-partners-with-fca-to-deliver-fully-driverless-cars-915c49ecb221
May 2020We shared our powerful partnership with @FiatChrysler_NA in May, delivering the last puzzle piece necessary to remove the Safety Driver in our robotaxis. https://news.voyage.auto/voyage-partners-with-fca-to-deliver-fully-driverless-cars-915c49ecb221
In May, we also experimented with new formats for our now weekly All-Hands.
We welcomed some amazing guest speakers, like @alexisohanian, @SECNAV75, and others.
They shared truly inspiring stories that energized us just when we needed it. https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1263968141706584064
We welcomed some amazing guest speakers, like @alexisohanian, @SECNAV75, and others.
They shared truly inspiring stories that energized us just when we needed it. https://twitter.com/olivercameron/status/1263968141706584064
July 2020We shipped @voyage Telessist 1.0. Telessist enables our robotaxi to navigate any edge case.
We took remote assistance a step further than others by building the Telessist Pod (which is fully automotive-grade). This unlocks so much for us. https://news.voyage.auto/introducing-voyage-telessist-a085e4c1f691
From day one of @voyage, we’ve always valued engineers going for rides in our robotaxis to understand customer pain-points.
In a locked down world, we had to get creative to accomplish that same goal.
The solution? We started live-streaming rides over Zoom for hours on end.
In a locked down world, we had to get creative to accomplish that same goal.
The solution? We started live-streaming rides over Zoom for hours on end.
August 2020We shipped the first version of our third-generation robotaxi.
The G3 will be our first robotaxi to operate commercially with no need for a Safety Driver. In other words, it’s a big deal! https://news.voyage.auto/introducing-the-voyage-g3-robotaxi-8f8772094193
October 2020We shared our partnership with @FirstTransit.
@FirstTransit will supercharge our ability to deliver large-scale and cost-effective robotaxi services to those who need it most. Their years of experience will save us years of pain. https://news.voyage.auto/voyage-partners-with-first-transit-38904d678cc6
November 2020We reached a major milestone in @voyage Commander—our state-of-the-art self-driving A.I.
Our robotaxis began to gracefully navigate scenarios that I could only have dreamt of when we founded @voyage. It’s mind-blowing. https://news.voyage.auto/introducing-voyage-commander-d7d7b2b4eb22
December 2020After grounding our fleet in March 2020, our robotaxis have now been back on the road for some time.
With all the technology we shipped in 2020, here’s what our fleet is now capable of.
Pretty cool, right?!
Even with all of our resilience, this year proved to be incredibly challenging for us in a number of ways:
Vendor delays
Hiring slowdown
Retention challenges
Grounded fleet
And *much* more
Many of these felt existential at the time.
Vendor delays Hiring slowdown Retention challenges Grounded fleet And *much* moreMany of these felt existential at the time.
However, our challenges were insignificant in the scheme of things.
I speak for all of @voyage when I say that the true heroes of 2020 were those that kept the world safe and moving forward.
We will never forget the amazing dedication of the essential and health workers.
I speak for all of @voyage when I say that the true heroes of 2020 were those that kept the world safe and moving forward.
We will never forget the amazing dedication of the essential and health workers.
It is also impossible to forget the incredible tragedy of 2020: 275,000 Americans who would have been here had it not been for this pandemic.
It was unfathomable to think of those numbers in March 2020, and today I find it just as hard to process.
It was unfathomable to think of those numbers in March 2020, and today I find it just as hard to process.
But, with recent vaccine news, things are finally looking up.
I am confident that 2021 will be a better year for our country. It must be.
I am so eager to get there—to resume some sort of normality—and to see what the @voyage team accomplishes yet again.
I am confident that 2021 will be a better year for our country. It must be.
I am so eager to get there—to resume some sort of normality—and to see what the @voyage team accomplishes yet again.
To conclude: thank you @voyage team. What a year.
You put everything you could into making us successful, and I am thankful every day to get to work with such talented and customer-obsessed co-workers. It is beyond inspiring.
Onwards to 2021, and to serving more riders.
You put everything you could into making us successful, and I am thankful every day to get to work with such talented and customer-obsessed co-workers. It is beyond inspiring.
Onwards to 2021, and to serving more riders.
