Take the robot car to Cowboys Stadium

Self-driving vans scoot around Dallas. No Images? [Click here]( Welcome to a special-edition newsletter from Curbed, a pop-up we'll send you twice weekly in advance of a project we’re launching on October 24th exploring four themes affecting California and Texas residents in the towns and cities where they live. Until then, we hope this email-only interview series—with inspiring folks from those two states, and conducted by senior reporter Patrick Sisson—will provide you with some enlightening context. Would you trust a robot car named Bob to drive you to a football game? [Drive.AI](, which runs a [driverless transit service]( in Frisco, Texas, hopes to find out. The California-based startup launched in July with a route that shuttles riders between Frisco office parks and shopping centers in modified blue-and-orange Nissan NV200 vans with friendly names. On October 19, service expands to another part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area—Arlington, including a stop at the home of the Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium. Drive.AI has a ways to catch up with [Waymo](, the automated vehicle industry leader that’s already racked up million of miles worth of test drives, but Vice President of Business Strategy Conway Chen says they’re gaining traction. “We thought the path to acceptance would take a lot longer,” says Chen. “Repeat ridership has come pretty quickly. People are pretty accepting.” Curbed spoke with Chen, a Houston native, about the challenges of getting riders to jump in a driverless vehicle, and why this transit technology can be particularly important for Texas. “It’s so hard to get around here without a car,” he says. “This can be meaningful technology that improves accessibility.” Patrick Sisson: Why did you choose Texas in general, and Frisco in particular? Conway Chen: In January, I started looking for a place to start to deploy. I wanted a city with the right regulatory process where there would be room to grow. Texas offers a clear regulatory environment at the state level, so that means we can think of Texas as one complete market. With Frisco and Arlington, we felt the public-private cooperation here was great, which made it easy to set up and coordinate service. How will this technology change the way Texans gets around? Part of what we’re starting with is microtransit—running service in a fixed area for trips that are too close to drive and too far to walk. Our goal now is to serve larger and larger areas: first intracity transit—where we can help riders with accessibility, or assisting cities with the last-mile problem—and then move to intercity transit, and solve regional issues. We want to take on a lot of different challenges. What is it about Frisco’s tech scene that draws in so many transit entrepreneurs and startups? Uber’s [Elevate flying car service]( is also launching there. We like the diversity of people in Frisco. The city started as a bedroom community, and even though now there are a lot of tech companies and tech people, it’s still diverse. That makes it an important testing ground for a big challenge tech has: explaining tech to different people and relating to those who don’t speak tech. That’s why we named our cars. It makes it more personable. I think we have an Anna, and the K car may be called Kitt, like Knight Rider. Has your approach to safety changed since the [Uber driverless car death in Arizona]( earlier this year? We’ve always made it a safety-first conversation. We actually finalized the conversation about launching with Frisco’s transit authority in May, right as that was happening. We had a frank and powerful conversation, and they told us that it’s not just about the technology, but how we came to the market. Are we getting excited too early, or is this technology soon going to be ready for prime time? From our perspective, self-driving cars are here today, and it’s not an amusement park ride. It’s useful, and people are using them day in and day out. There’s real value here. We're also talking Texas and California in a new Facebook group: [Click to join.]( Sent from a friend? [Subscribe to this newsletter](. Read previous interviews in this series: [Lax zoning, the best ingredient for Houston]((Chef Jean-Philippe Gaston). [Austin’s 96-year-old battery whiz]((Dr. John Goodenough). [Why the border wall will always be a canvas]( (Artist Jill Marie Holslin). Photos by Cayce Clifford. [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Website]( This newsletter is brought to you by Curbed. [Forward]( [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](