Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
The news media has expended considerable effort researching and publishing information about the robotaxi business. This channel highlights some of the important articles.
NY Times reports on how the state of New York is expected to withdraw its proposal for expanding autonomous vehicles outside of New York City. The humans (mostly labor groups and taxi drivers) have spoken!
The Verge reports that Waymo is still trying to hide that remove drivers in the Philippines are actually controlling the vehicles in some situations.
electrek reports that Tesla has dodged a 30-day suspension in California by finally changing their false marketing campaigns. Tesla is completely dropping "AutoPilot" and will only refer to FSD through the amazing contradiction of "Full Self Driving (supervised)"
Washington Post Editorial Board publishes absolute nonsense on the safety of autonomous vehicles, in the hopes of minimizing safety regulations. The Washington Post used to be an important newspaper, but clearly no longer.
electrek fact checks Elon's statements on the alleged Tesla robotaxi service and finds that it is all just a bunch of lies.
The Verge reports on Waymo talking around one of their biggest problems: they don't manufacture cars. Therefore they have to adapt their technology to a series of vehicles. And note that the Zeekr is a Chinese import which current has a 100% tariff levied.
11 Alive from Atlanta reports that a Waymo, this time with a passenger, drives into the middle of an active crime scene where to policed officers were just injured in a shooting.
5 NBC DFW reports on how relying on the "self-driving" features of a Tesla can go incredibly wrong. Once again, a Tesla ran into emergency vehicles with their lights flashing. This completely demolishes the argument that AVs will help eliminate the dangers of drunk driving. Drunk driving is still drunk driving, even if one has some fancy, but half-baked, technology.
Newsweek reports that Waymo has finally publicly acknowledged that 1) their vehicles are not truly autonomous and need human help in driving in certain situations; and 2) this human driving help can be located many thousands of miles away, in the Philippines! No wonder Waymos run over kids and animals.
Wired reports that Washington DC politicians have seen how things have gone elsewhere and want some good answers about safety before allowing Waymo to operate in the city.
KTLA reports that the California Teamsters union is pushing to get Waymo robotaxis off the streets due to them recently hitting and injuring a child and also going passed stopped school buses illegally.
TechCrunch reports that a Waymo struck and injured a child. Waymo falsely claims that their system is safer than a human driver in this situation. But the reality is that the Waymo vehicle was not even carrying a passenger. It was driving empty. If a vehicle is owned and operated by a person than it wouldn't have been making that trip in the first place, thus sparing the child from being hit.
electrek reports that Tesla continues to try to hide as much as their safety data as possible, yet the data available still shows that they have a 3x crash rate compared to human drivers.
TechCrunch reports that Waymo is under yet another investigation for violating traffic safety laws and passing by stopped school buses, some with children crossing the street. This investigation is by the National Transportation Safety Board. They do not actually regulate the Waymo robotaxis, but they are experts in conducting safety investigations.
electrek reports on how Tesla robotaxis are still in no way automomous. Musk recently announced that Tesla would be operating service without a safety driver human in the car. Turns out the safety human is simply in another car following close behind. Just as the Tesla Optimus "robots" are simply teleoperated puppets, the Tesla robotaxis aren't actually autonomous. But hey, expect lots of BS at the earnings announcement on January 26 in order to keep the stock inflated as much as possible.
