Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
This page shows all the articles on Robotaxi.rodeo with the most recents ones first. Select an article below, or select a specific topic to browse using the menu above.
Crash analysis: 8/17/23 Cruise vehicle crashed with a firetruck on an emergency call. Cruise seriously misrepresented what went went wrong and appeared to never address the root problem of their vehicles not stopping for emergency responders.
San Francisco officials, led by City Attorney David Chiu, have filed a motion to halt the CPUC's decision allowing unchecked expansion of commercial autonomous vehicles (AVs) by Cruise and Waymo. Citing public safety concerns and numerous incidents where AVs interfered with emergency services, the city is seeking a stay while challenging the decision's lack of consideration for safety and environmental impacts in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act.
Article from SF Chronicle by Soleil Ho. Covers how Cruise and Waymo actively lobbied and funded disability organizations to get support for robotaxis. But it appears this was just a cynical ploy.
Article from the Atlantic by David Zipper. Discusses whether out society actually wants or benefits from robotaxis, and why “coning” AVs was bound to happen.
Bigad Shaban from NBC Bay Area investigates whether driverless cars are ready, just before the big CPUC vote on them on Aug 10th. The first ride went just fine. So for the second ride he brought along a long-time driving instructor to judge the abilities of the robotaxi. In the…
Article from SFGATE by Joshua Bote. Important because it confirms that former Mayor Willie Brown spoke out in favor of cruise because he has been a paid lobbyist for Cruise, since 2020!
Crash analysis: 8/7/23 Cruise crashed with a semi-truck on Stanyan St in San Francisco. Definitely not safe to try to overtake a truck that is clearly turning in front of you. Once again, the Cruise robotaxi stopped exactly in the wrong place and was damaged because of lack of defensive driving abilities.
See original article by Sue Vaughan on 48 Hills. They will further damage public transit—and they’re no help to people with disabilities. On August 7 and August 10, the five members of the California Public Utilities Commission will take up the proposal to permit an unlimited number of autonomous Cruise…
Post by E.W. Niedermeyer, the author of Ludicrous. Makes the key statement: "Like Large Language Models, driving automation is a technology that draws us into a fantasy, thinking a vehicle “can drive itself” after a few minutes of plausible performance. "
An interview with Safe Street Rebel about halting the expansion of Waymo and Cruise in San Francisco. This article is from Paris Marxs’ blog at https://disconnect.blog, where you can also find many other articles on the perils of technologies like robotaxis, and the technologists who foist them on our society.
Article from the SF Standard by Kevin Truong. An interview with SafeStreetRebel to learn about the practice of “coning” robotaxis. Covers how it started, and why.
ABC 7 reporter goes on a wild ride in a Waymo. It stops at a green light on a busy road. Then gets lost and tries to drop off passenger 5 minutes away from their destination. The subsequent try was no better. The journalist wishes that there was a driver to talk to in order to actually get to where they wanted to go.
Useful history on Waymo vehicles
Crash analysis: on 3/23/23 a Cruise vehicle crashed into the rear of an articulated Muni bus while traveling on Haight Street in San Francisco. Cruise claimed that the problem was due to poor speed prediction of the articulated bus, and that they fixed the problem via a software recall. But this analysis shows that they were not being truthful and that the danger might still exist.
dazeen reports on how autonomous vehicles require a large amount of energy just for all the computer processing required
