Nuro challenges Waymo: the second-mover strategy in robotaxis

• Timeline of a turning point: from delivery bot to robotaxi

Nuro, a company born from Google's self-driving project spin-off, abandoned autonomous delivery in 2024. Instead, it chose to enter the robotaxi market. The move is ambitious: a partnership with Uber and Lucid aims to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles in the United States. However, Waymo leads the industry with over 3,000 driverless cars in at least 10 American cities.

Nuro doesn't step up as a direct challenger. Instead, it adopts a second mover : let the pioneer define the market, then step in with structural advantages — lower costs, mature technology, and others' past mistakes already paid for. This dynamic is far from new. In fact, it repeats itself across many digital and physical sectors. For Italian SMEs operating in last-mile logistics or urban transport, the Nuro case offers a concrete strategic takeaway.

We at SHM Studio Let's break down the timeline of this deal, who won and lost in the short term, and what it means for Italian businesses diving into automation. Specifically, we want to figure out how the second-mover playbook can inspire digital and tech positioning choices even outside the auto industry.