Latest / Autonomy Insiders / beti: The French AV Operator Behind WeRide's First European Robobus | Benjamin Beaudet, CEO beti
Transcript
- Daniel Abreu Marques: Welcome to Autonomy Insiders, the show where global industry leaders in autonomous driving unpack their real-world insights. BEN: we add two new technologies to our portfolio. And what we are seeing is that the gap within the leading pack is becoming quite narrow. Once you go beyond eight hours of operation per day, and especially when you move from five days a week to seven days a week, the economics can improve very quickly I think that with this kind of condition, we believe the operating cost can be around 30 % lower than conventional service with a driver. So the real value is not simply replacing a driver, but it's the ability to provide more hours of service, more days per week with a different operating cost structure. Daniel Abreu Marques: Welcome back to Autonomy Insiders. I'm your host, Daniel, and most conversation about autonomous vehicles are conversations about vehicles or software or even sensors. But somebody also has to answer the phone when a passenger is stuck or somebody has to talk to the fire brigade. Somebody has to hit the KPIs written into a contract with a transport authority. And that is a service layer. It's unglamorous It's deeply local, and it may turn out to be where a lot of the value in this industry actually sits. And My guest today runs a company built entirely on that bet, Benjamin Baudet, CEO of beti a French operator of automated mobility networks. And beti is a spin-off from Bertolami a family coach business that has been moving people around rural France from more than 70 years. So Benjamin, welcome to Autonomy Insiders. BEN: Thank you and hello everyone. Daniel Abreu Marques: I want to start somewhere slightly unusual because I think the origin of beti explains also maybe the strategy behind so before we go into the history and strategy, can you give me a plain version? So if I'm the head of a mid sized transport operator and I have never heard of beti. So what do you do and what do I buy from you? BEN: Quick answer, we provide the digital and human services needed to operate automated mobility transport system for passengers and goods across Europe. Daniel Abreu Marques: And beti did not start as a technology company, as I said. So it started inside Bertolami, a family coach operator that has been running buses in rural france since the nineteen and fifties, So what did your family see in twenty nineteen that made you think the right response to autonomous vehicles was to start a new company rather than wait and buy the technology later? BEN: If we back in 2019, very few players were looking at autonomous mobility in rural areas. And at the same time, we can already see that digitalization alongside the energy transition is very important for our traditional business. So given our background and our DNA as a family company and transport operator, we feel very well positioned to explore this new segment of automotive mobility in rural areas. And several years later, I do think that there is now a broad consensus that autonomous mobility will be useful in this kind of area. it was an intuition at the beginning, part of our history, and now a great business for us. Daniel Abreu Marques: And your own positioning says also something like, driving is digitalized, but mobility is still operated. So can you can you walk us through the moment that became your strategy rather than just just a phrase? So was there a specific incident on a route where you realized the hard problem was maybe not only the driving? BEN: It wasn't something like a hard problem or an incident. was based on an analysis that we have done in the company. We carried out a lot of public transportation and we raised a very simple question. If the driver is no longer on board, who performs hundreds of tasks that are not related to driving situation? We made some study and I identified 421 tasks which are made with our conductors every day but are not driving tasks. So when we discussed these issues with autonomous driving technology providers, it became clear that quite rightly the focus was on the driving technology and only driving technology and not operating these kind of services. That's really where our strategy came from. Autonomous driving technology can replace the driving task but it does not replace the operator. So we need to develop digital tasks and competencies around services for the autonomous mobility. Daniel Abreu Marques: And you also run beti alongside your existing coach business with your brother. So how much of Bertolami's existing operational muscles like drivers, depots, dispatch customer service, actually transfers to an autonomous service? And how much of it turned out to be maybe also not transferring? BEN: For us, it's a real source of agility. For beti Bertolami is a real source of agility. For an operation like Roland Garros, for example, we can mobilize around 10 experienced transport drivers for more than a month. So it's easy to find people from around the area to be ready for this event. And we think that with more than 20 people, actually. expert of operation on ground situation. It's very interesting for beti to take these resources in Bertolami and use them for our operation for our customers. Daniel Abreu Marques: Makes sense and maybe now let's let's get concrete about the product. So you call it a turnkey solution. So maybe give us the contents and so what physically arrives when an operator signs with you and which of those pieces do you build yourself, maybe also and versus you source it from from somewhere else? BEN: Our offering is really built around two things, people and software. First, we provide teams with expertise in deploying and operating autonomous driving technologies, such as weride technologies. They bring the operational know how needed to turn this technology into an actual transport public or private transport. Second, we provide software licenses from two of our platforms. The first is OperaVision, an application suite designed for the operating team. The second one is HyperVision, which enables this autonomous transfer system to operate and monitor it remotely. Both software are developed entirely in-house. This is also a personal reason because before, to join my brother in 2018. I spent more than 20 years building and running digital development companies. So from the beginning, I strongly believed that this software layer was strategic for the company, for beti, and that we needed to own our development. So we have field team, human competencies, but also software that we developed. Daniel Abreu Marques: And you used the word hypervision rather than supervision or teleoperation which I think are terms that others use. So and your definition is that hypervision cannot drive the vehicle but can react to alerts, stop it, also monitor the service. So why does this distinction matter so much to you? And is it a safety argument, a regulatory argument, an economic one? BEN: I think that for us, it's really about making the responsibilities very clear. With our solution, we are not responsible for the driving itself. That responsibility remains to the autonomous driving technology. Our responsibility is to operate the transport service that the technology is supposed to deliver. That distinction is fundamental for us because driving the technology and operating a mobility service are two different jobs. requiring different technologies and different expertise. And I think that global leaders in autonomous driving technology, whether they are American or Chinese, are increasingly recognized that. And they also recognize that in Europe, we have very strong expertise in operating complex public transportation service. We have big companies around that. So it's natural for us to propose these kind of services. Daniel Abreu Marques: maybe one one more question to this hypervision. So is this then always located within France as well, the hypervision? BEN: We have some regulatory to ask us to be in the same country. So actually we have some collaboration in France, Belgium and Switzerland. And when we are in Belgium, the Hypervision is in Belgium. And when it's in Switzerland, the Hypervision is in Switzerland. Daniel Abreu Marques: Makes sense. your pitch to operators is also that you train them to run the network themselves. So that sounds also like you're building a business where the customer eventually does not need you that much. So is that a is that really the model or is there also a layer that you always keep? BEN: I think that the software layer is really the key for us. Our goal is to train the teams that will operate the service on a daily basis and make them autonomous very quickly, quickly as possible. We keep an high level of expertise to support them when they need it. But we don't want them to depend on us for day-to-day operation. What remains over time is the software layer, OperaVision and HyperVision. They are the common thread that connects us to the operator to do the life of the service. So yes, we deliver everything that helps our customers to become operationally autonomous, but the long-term relationship is built around our software and our expertise. Daniel Abreu Marques: there's a lot of tasks that you have to do when when you operate such a service like passenger management, event handling, SLA commitments with cities, first responses procedures and stuff like that. So which of these tasks do customers underestimate the most when they first come to you? BEN: Actually, because we work with a lot of mobility operators, I would say that they didn't underestimate these issues. In many cases, the fact that they understand their complexity is precisely why they come to us, why they ask to work with them. We still see a learning curve around the autonomous driving technology side, but they begin also to understand that They have to work with us, they have to create some API, some solutions to build together the solution for the final customer. So I think that actually it's more difficult with technology provider than final customers. Daniel Abreu Marques: And if we would zoom out so to to look more on the structure of the industry. So can you break the AV mobility business into different layers as you see it? And then also where do you see beti sit? And yeah, maybe also where does beti explicitly refuse to go? BEN: It's not an easy question, Daniel, because you can divide the autonomous mobility value chain in very many different layers. Since the last five years, I've seen a lot of models. If I would like to simplify in four main ones, the autonomous driving technology, the physical vehicle, the physical infrastructure required to operate the service, and finally, the digital and infrastructure required to operate it. And beti, we have made a very good choice. We don't develop any driving technology. We don't build vehicles. So we work on infrastructure with people and with software. Daniel Abreu Marques: And I think one number everyone in this fleet operation layer wants to know and nobody publishes is how many vehicles can one supervisor or maybe in your framing than hypervisor handle today in your operations and what do you need to be true to get that ratio also to where you need it to be to be economically, for example. BEN: I will answer at the beginning with a little twist to say one vehicle at one time. But behind that, we have actually observed two different approaches. The first one, which is closer than our model, is to assign around four vehicles to one supervisor, one supervisor, with overflow procedure in place of something happens on a vehicle at the same time. The other approach is more dynamic. Vehicles are assigned to a supervisor in real time. depending on their status and whether they will try human attention So it's very interesting to see the both At this stage, I don't think anyone can say with certainty which model is the best, the most efficient at scale. As fleets grow from a few vehicles, it's easy to have four to one. But when we will have more than hundreds of vehicles, I think it could be a good question. So I think that we will have the answer in the next few years, maybe in 2028, to choose the best model and the best takes around that. Daniel Abreu Marques: And what is the actual constraint on that ratio right now? So is it the vehicle or the tooling regulation or also the human attention span or? BEN: Actually, we follow human intention and to be sure that they can manage four vehicles at the same time. We have made big works with some French universities around this asset to be sure that they could follow that. And we changed the team after two hours of duty tour. I think it's a good word. and they have a break and after that they go back to the Repair Vision Centre. Daniel Abreu Marques: beyond the hypervision team so what does the ground crew look like so you have also other tasks like cleaning charging depot roadside recovery or something like that so what share of your real operating cost is the part nobody puts into a press release BEN: We are actually quite close to the ratio we already know from our traditional transport industry, around 20 % I think, for the operating effort dedicated to these kind of activities that you describe. Autonomous mobility doesn't make sense without this kind of issue, so we need to develop and to budget that. Daniel Abreu Marques: And if we now look at some of your partners, for example, WeRide or Renault, so what stops those partners from deciding maybe in two years that the service layer is super valuable and they build it themselves what makes it beti so hard to replace for them? BEN: Good question. What we are building is based on 75 years of real world experiences on the road. operating transport services, dealing with passengers and working with public authorities and political decision makers, it's not easy. And I don't think they are ready to take this job. So maybe... One part of the answer is that it's really not the most shining job to do and maybe not the way to create lot of values that they need for their finance management or other things like that. Daniel Abreu Marques: And so here your your family owned structure basically also helps you in in that kind of BEN: Yeah, Daniel Abreu Marques: regard. BEN: of course, of course. Daniel Abreu Marques: Maybe let's get into this deployment or into your deployments that put you also on a map in France, so in Valence, February, 2025 So WeRide's first fully driverless commercial robobus service in Europe. So how did that partnership actually come together? BEN: In October 2024, we travelled to Guangzhou and met with WeRide management team. We convinced them that beti could be the right partner to support their entry in the Europe market. Not too big, not too small, with a lot of experiences. And that experience we had already built up in autonomous mobility and combined with the expertise of our team with an international environment, because a lot of part of my team speak better English than me. So it will be easier to build something with them. And I think that the combination between expertise and international experience was a key factor to moving quickly and making this project a success for the European market for WeRide Daniel Abreu Marques: And the route you take links a TGV station, long stay parking and a business park with one hundred and fifty companies. So that is a very specific commercial choice compared to your rural routes, so to speak. So why that route and what did the ridership data tell you that surprised you maybe? BEN: Actually not really because this route is only about 20 minutes from our headquarter So it's not a railway station in a big city. It's a rural area. So the choice was mainly about finding the right use case. One that WeRide was comfortable with, that local authorities can support and for our teams that we could operate with confidence. That's why we make this choice. Also because there was no existing public transport service in this area near Valence TGV, which also made it easier for people to understand the value of the new service. Adoption, I think, is very important in this kind of project. So it was very, very, very positive to create something for the users. What was particularly interesting was how quickly some passengers became ambassadors for the service. They can very quickly explain the function, the parkour, all things. for me, public acceptance is very important. So if you find very quickly some people to help you to diffuse the service, you win the business. Daniel Abreu Marques: Absolutely. So you they had more or less the same experience than like people in Waymo. So I often read in reports that if you once drive a Waymo, then you're like, this is amazing. I never want to drive another vehicle again. It's like the same for your bus l route. BEN: Yes, but without an influencer, we need real people that use the service every day, that find useful service I think it's better. Not for the image. Daniel Abreu Marques: And if we look at the permits, so I read that the driverless permits also came through in about three months or something like that as a record in France. So what did you do differently in that application process that it was so fast? BEN: But by that point, to be clear, we had already four authorizations for all the autonomous vehicle operations before. So this experience made a real difference, the quality of the application that we have made, because we know the question that they ask us. We prepare the good application. So it's easier to. discuss and to obtain the authorization if you are ready and you have really experimented with this kind of part of the process. for us, it was not a shortcut. It was really the result of several years of experience and accumulated experience. And it's recognized now in France, but also in other countries in Europe. So we are very happy to manage this part of the business to be sure that we have the good authorization to be on the road. Daniel Abreu Marques: Super interesting. And we mentioned that you integrated WeRide and WeRide is a Chinese driving stack. So and integrating a Chinese driving stack into a French public transport operation, so what generally has to be rebuilt? So was there different, I don't know, requirements in terms of data flows, incident reporting or stuff like that? So where was maybe a friction in regards to that? BEN: Absolutely. We were starting with a system that originally had been designed with many components and processes specific to Chinese market. Because the RoboBus was only in Chinese market. They used RoboTaxi in Middle East. But it was the first time for the RoboBus for the European market and outside the Asian market because they developed some process in Singapore area. So we had to work on many practical issues from language, interface, and regulated data protocols because we have some differences between France and China. And to be transparent, everything was not perfect at the beginning of the operation. I think that it takes one year, to be sure at the end that we closed all gaps. and adapt the system and making it very robust for the European market. I think that after Rovaltain and Valence TGV, we have made four new operations with WeRide in Europe. And we are very fast for this new operation because we have accumulated a lot of experiences for the first deployment. And I think that the solution is, both solutions between Beti and WeRide is very... clear for the European market. Daniel Abreu Marques: Yeah, so super interesting. Can you also give us some more context in which other places you operate with WeRide? Like the four you mentioned? BEN: We have made Orléans, have made Roland Garros, we have made Château and we prepared some new developments that won't be announced at the time. Daniel Abreu Marques: All right. And you mentioned earlier that you have had experience with others operators before so you have operated, I think, Navya also Easy Mile, and then WeRide vehicles. So if you compare them as an operator, which one was the easiest to run? BEN: It's not really fair for this comparison because this technology, I think they belong to different generations. WeRide is clearly the easiest for us to operate because it's the last generation. Navya and EasyMile were the first to on this sector. So it's a little bit difficult to evaluate from the same way. Actually, with our processing, we add two new technologies to our portfolio. And what we are seeing is that the gap within the leading pack is becoming quite narrow. The leaders are really the leaders. And to evaluate this technology from an operator perspective, we have developed our own framework based on different criteria, more than 20. And after, we have a lot of questions and lot of tests to assess the technology. But we are moving away from simply question which technology drive best to real question for us is which technology is the easiest, safest and most efficient to operate. that's research actually. We continue development with WeRide but we prepare also new collaboration with technology leaders. Daniel Abreu Marques: Interesting. And you also mentioned already the Roland Garros deployment, and I think it was in 2026. You were the vehicle operator of for that service. but the service had been running since 2024 with other arrangements. So what made them bring you in for year three? And what does this fifteen day event also with this heavy crowds night operation also teach you that your year round route does not? BEN: To be transparent, were already the operator at Roland Garros in 2025. So it was a second year for us. What changed in 2026 is that we were responsible not only for the operation on the ground, but also for the operation. So for the first time, 100 % beti team managed the entire operation from end end. For me, demonstrate two things. First, the level of trust that WeRide now placing beti as an operating partner. And second, it shows that we have technology is genuinely portable. It can be deployed in Europe and operated locally by european partner without relying a lot of WeRide teams for day-to-day operation and services. I think it's a good issue for us and also for them and also for us. because we have differences around that. So we can prepare next operation with new customer for the bus Daniel Abreu Marques: Another question that everyone asks is so who is your customer and who writes the cheques so to speak? Is it then the transport authority, public transport operator, private site owner? So or is there even a mix and has the mix changed? BEN: Our customer is clearly the organization that provides the mobility service to the end user. So depending on the project that can be a transport authority, a public transport operator or a private organization, we have different situation. What has changed significantly is the funding model. Today our operations are not longer dependent on subsidy programs. The customers pays us to operate the service. We do however still benefit from France 2030 funding from some software developments, but not for operations. So I think it's very important to separate the bus. Our operation increasingly driven by commercial demand. Why public innovation funding still helps us to accelerate some of technology development. For example, on cybersecurity, because we have sovereignty and all things around that. So we need to be a accompanied to scale our solution. Daniel Abreu Marques: And if we take now the Valence service as an example, so if you compare maybe a small diesel or electric minibus with a human driver on the same route, so on a cost per vehicle kilometer or cost per passenger, so where is the autonomous option today and what has to change for it to win if it does not win already? BEN: I think that today the economic advantage really comes from the ability to operate the service over much longer hours. Once you go beyond eight hours of operation per day, and especially when you move from five days a week to seven days a week, the economics can improve very quickly when there is no safety operator on board. I think that with this kind of condition, we believe the operating cost can be around 30 % lower than conventional service with a driver. So the real value is not simply replacing a driver, but it's the ability to provide more hours of service, more days per week with a different operating cost structure. I think that could be a good model. Daniel Abreu Marques: we also talked already about other providers, for example, that you worked with the Navya and Navya restructured and I think several shuttle manufacturers have failed or have been absorbed. And as an operator, you have watched your suppliers maybe also disappear. So how does that shape your contracts and your fleet strategy now? BEN: We learned something from every one of those collaborations. So I feel more sadness for the teams who worked incredibly hard on this project than regret about the shows we made before. Today, of course, financial robustness is one of the criteria we consider when we select a technology partner. I told you that actually we worked with two new technologies and it was an assessment that we made. But it is not only... the only one and certainly not the most important for us. Our strategy is not to bet everything on one technology provider. So it's very important for us to build robust operational processes that can work with any autonomous driving technology, Chinese, American technology, other origin. That is also part of what makes beti technology agnostic. I used the very similar time this time agnostic technology provider and suppliers because I think that we will have success with different partner not only with one and it will be very important for us also because we work on public transportation but also on robotaxi transportation for people for goods so we have a lot of opportunities to create and to build this legacy. Daniel Abreu Marques: Yeah, looking forward to to the announcements of your two new technology partners. And if we look at the the European landscape, there are European operators that are really large, like Keolis, Transdev, RATP, and something like that. So are these your competitors or your cooperation partners, or how do you do you place beti? BEN: Today, they have become our customers. And I believe we have both the capabilities and the shared interest to build long-term relationships with them. For now, that is really our focus. We want to work with these major operators, demonstrate that our model works. It's good to support them as autonomous mobility moves and new strategy that they need to scale because they will have more opportunities than... than us. So rather to speculate today about who might compete with whom and other things, I think that we need to see and wait for the first large scale deployment. And after that, I think that we will have a place on the market and our respective role will be much clearer for everyone. Daniel Abreu Marques: sense and maybe now let's look for the last question into the future. So so in three years from now for example. So what does a successful outcome for beti look like in numbers? So for example, like in vehicles that you operate, countries that you operate in, something like that. BEN: Today our business plan is primarily based on the number of hypervision licenses deployed. Hypervision for a vehicle. So the number I will give you for 2030 is 2000. That would be a very clear measure of success for us because for the biggest factor outside our control, particularly in public transport. The development is very strong, actually, and we think that it will be interesting to have new players on this market. WeRide currently have a significant lead for the RoboBus. Robotaxi is another competition, but for the RoboBus, it's very interesting. But I think that one player rarely makes a market, so they need to some competitors. And I hope that... Maybe actors like holon that you know in Germany, could be a player in the next few years. I think that if we have several credible vehicles and technology providers competing and deploying at scale, that will accelerate the hunter market and our ability to reach this target of 2,000 licenses. Daniel Abreu Marques: Yeah, sounds super interesting. And I hope it all develops the way that it it comes true that you have two thousand of these licenses. and in general autonomous mobility accelerates. And as we talked before we started this podcast, we are witnessing like the first accelerations today and I'm really happy to see that. And yeah, so Benjamin, thank you really much for taking the time today to shed some light on beti and also give us some insights in a French fleet operator, which I definitely will include now the insights into my fleet operations overview. So thank BEN: Yeah. Daniel Abreu Marques: you really much for taking the time and yeah, so happy to had you on today. BEN: Thank you for your question and thank you for your attention. Au revoir.