
Waymo robotaxis will definitely not solve transportation problems
This is likely the biggest autonomous traffic jam ever! Thanks for nothing, Waymo.
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
This is likely the biggest autonomous traffic jam ever! Thanks for nothing, Waymo.
The Verge reports that Cruise is still losing a tremendous amount of money even though it is not currently providing robotaxi service.
Washington Post reports on how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now investigating four Tesla crashes where "Full Self Driving" was engaged. All crashes occurred when there were visibility issues. These suggest that Tesla only using computer vision instead of LiDAR is insufficient for autonomous driving. And this is of course extremely pertinent given that Tesla's stock price is now based on robotaxis, which are in turn based on technology which Tesla does not have and is not pursuing.
NBC Bay Area published an important three-part series on how Uber and Lyft have been discriminating against people who use service animals. This is a rare situation where Waymo actually is doing the right thing.
Bloomberg reports that current US law limits number of vehicles without driver controls to 2,500/year. This means that even if Tesla somehow came up with a real "cybercab", they would be limited to producing just a very small number of them, making it economically unviable.
Streetsblog reports on a new paper from researchers at Duke, Stanford, U-C Berkeley and the University of Chicago. The paper describes why electric vehicles are only slightly better than ones with internal combustion engines, and that therefore EV subsidies should be rethought. This is very relevant to robotaxis since the companies falsely claim that they are beneficial to society because they are EVs.