The Daily Valet. - 9/13/22, Tuesday

✔️ Driverless Rides

September 13, 2022

Tuesday, September 13th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

If you know anyone at Panda Express who wants to sponsor this newsletter, let’s talk.

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

Today’s Big Story

Driverless Rides

Cruise is launching robotaxi services in Phoenix and Austin. Are more coming to a road near you?

Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motors, will launch a robotaxi service in Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas before the end of 2022, the company announced on Monday.

Currently, Cruise operates a ride-hailing service in only one city, San Francisco, where it received permission to begin charging customers for rides earlier this year. That service took years to scale up; Cruise now says it can do the same in two new cities in just a couple months. “Our team is going from zero footprint in Austin (no test vehicles or maps) to driverless rides in 90 days,” co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt tweeted.

It also puts Cruise in two cities that already have an autonomous vehicle presence. According to TechCrunch, Waymo has operated in the suburbs of Phoenix for years and recently expanded to downtown (with plans to launch a paid service in San Francisco soon). Argo AI—backed by GM rival Ford and VW Group—is actively testing and has pilots with commercial partners underway in Austin as well.

Then there’s Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which is testing its fully autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas. Yandex, the Russian tech giant, tested its AVs in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020 but has shut down its operations in the U.S. following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And according to CBS News, robotaxis are popping up all over China too. Tech giant Baidu, better known for its search engine and sometimes referred to as China’s Google, is among the companies testing self-driving taxis in 10 markets across the country.

My question is what will Cruise’s new robotaxis look like? Because their current fleet is comprised of modified Chevy Bolts, outfitted with a handful of visible sensors, cameras, radar and lidar. But the company says it’s testing its next-generation vehicle, the Cruise Origin (which you see above) at a proving ground in Michigan, with plans to ramp up production next year.

That’s the driverless taxi of the future I want to see. And, of course, development on Tesla’s proposed robotaxi service continues. Unlike the others, Tesla’s system is not being designed with a launch city in mind. Elon Musk told shareholders last month that their robotaxis will be like Uber and Airbnb combined. Once the automaker’s Full Self-Driving mode is fully operational, Musk said Tesla owners will have the choice of using it themselves or adding their cars to the robotaxi fleet to earn money whenever they don’t need their vehicles.

↦ Meanwhile: There is no driving test for self-driving cars in the United States. But perhaps there should be. The Verge asks if a European-style regulatory system would improve safety.

Ready to Give Up Passwords?

What is Apple Passkey, and how will it help you go passwordless?

With the iOS 16 release on Monday, Apple introduced support for passkeys, a new login technology that promises to be more secure than passwords at guarding access to websites and email.

Apple demonstrated passkeys at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this summer and they're coming to Google's Android and to web browsers, as well. Why? Because passwords are notoriously insecure, with weak and easily guessable credentials accounting for more than 80% of all data breaches.

Apple, Google and Microsoft are working together to create convenient sign-in technology that is both quick and more secure. According to WIRED, Apple's rollout is one of the largest implementations of password-free technology to date and builds on years of work by the FIDO Alliance, an industry group made up of tech's biggest companies.

Using a passkey is similar to using a password—it's built into the traditional password boxes. Once you set up a passkey for a site or app, it's stored on the phone or personal computer you used to set it up. Your iCloud Keychain or Google's Chrome password manager can synchronize passkeys across your devices. But Cnet says there's the catch: You'll have to have your phone or computer with you to use passkeys. You can't log onto a passkey-secured account from a friend's computer without a device of your own.

↦ FYI: These are still early days. It’s unlikely you'll be forced to use passkeys while the technology is new and unfamiliar.

What Went Down at the Emmys

A few surprises, but it was mostly what we expected to see, right?

It was TVs biggest night (that wasn't a Game of Thrones premiere). And according to Variety, the biggest surprise of the 2022 Emmy awards is that there were almost no surprises at all.

Category after category, the nominees awards experts expected to win, did win. The three shows with the most nominations—Succession, Ted Lasso and The White Lotus—all won the top prizes in their respective categories. Still, there were some disappointments, especially for freshman shows that broke into the nominations with a lot of buzz—but no Emmy hardware to show for it.

Euphoria's Zendaya made history, becoming the youngest-ever two-time acting winner. So did Squid Game's Lee Jung-jae, as the first Asian to win best drama actor. Abbott Elementary's creator and star, Quinta Brunson, was the first Black woman to earn three comedy nominations in the same year—she won for Outstanding Writing—and according to The Hollywood Reporter gifted ABC with the first broadcast series to stand a fighting chance among the streamers and prestige players in almost a decade..

Those who perennially complain that Hollywood is too political must have been pleased with last night's ceremony. With less than two months to go before the crucial midterm elections, there wasn't a single political speech delivered by a winner. There was, however, a distracting graphic at the bottom of the screen with some extra thank-you messages from each winner. Was that the first time for those?

↦ FYI: GQ and Vogue both break down the biggest red carpet fits of the night.

Orange Chicken Without the Chicken

Fake chicken sets its sights on Chinese American fast food

Let me be truthful for minute: I've been accused of being a snob once or twice. My mother calls my taste “highfalutin”. But I've always loved Panda Express. It's not even a guilty pleasure because I'm a proud supporter of this all-American immigrant success story. But I digress.

While there are a lot of dishes on the menu, the Orange Chicken is really all that matters at Panda Express, right? And after an initial foray into testing vegan ‘chicken’ at its restaurants, the company has rolled out Beyond Meat Orange Chicken as a menu item nationwide.

For a limited time, they will be testing the meatless chicken bits at more than 2,300 restaurants. And so far, the initial reviews are pretty positive. The Takeout did a side-by-side comparison and said they'd happily make the swap. According to Thrillist, each nugget is uniform—which may or may not be a problem. “It means that the plant-based chicken substitute is evenly cooked and coated. But it also means you are not getting those little crunchy, fried extras at the bottom of the container.”

The uniformity also means less surface area for that signature tangy sauce to cling to. However, I'm all for this kind of experimentation. I think most crispy fast food chicken could be swapped to any old protein, dipped in batter and covered in sauce and most customers would be none the wiser. However, I'll save my final verdict until I try this myself.

↦ FYI: Panda Express has reported that 103 million pounds of Orange Chicken are served each year.

In Other News

↦ Over 30 Trump Associates Subpoenaed by Grand Jury Over Alleged Efforts to Influence 2020 Election Results

↦ So You Haven’t Caught COVID Yet. Does That Mean You’re a Superdodger?

↦ TikTok Brings New Life to the Old Internet

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

A $50K bottle of Scotch

This Ikea collaboration turntable

Romeo Santos takes his skin seriously

It’s Negroni Week

Why it matters and four variations on the classic cocktail

It’s officially Negroni Week. Now, we don't usually honor these seemingly made-up holidays (i.e. “National taco day”), but this isn't some random marketing scheme. For the last decade, restaurants and bars across the country (and around the world) have honored the classic cocktail while raising funds for various charities worldwide.

Interestingly, it's a drink that's often associated with summer lounging. But that's probably due to its louche Italian origins. Aperitivo is, for all intents and purposes, Italy's take on happy hour. But it is also a state of mind—a sort of devil-may-care moment in the day when you slow down and appreciate the little things. The drinks are meant to be sipped, in preparation of a meal.

The Negroni has become the patron saint of the aperitivo. And also the drink of choice for stylish guys everywhere. “There is rarely such a thing as a bad Negroni, which may hold the key to its popularity,” says the dapper Matt Hranek, who literally wrote the book about the cocktail and admits he currently has more photos of the ruby red drink on his phone than of his own family.

And now's the time to experiment. Find a participating bar to try a fresh take on the tipple. “It's basically a pub crawl for a good cause with an Italian twist,” says Helena Lombard, food and drinks expert at The Mixer. We asked her for a few simple, yet satisfying, riffs on the classic cocktail.

↦ Read: Why the Negroni has become so popular and four variations you should make at home.