Reuters – GM takes full control of Cruise in autonomous personal vehicle shift
Reuters reports that GM has finished taking full control and all stock of Cruise. As part of the process, 1,000 Cruise employees were laid off in the past.
Robotaxi.news
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Robotaxi.news
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
News
The news media has expended considerable effort researching and publishing information about the robotaxi business. This channel highlights some of the important articles.
Read MoreReuters – GM takes full control of Cruise in autonomous personal vehicle shift
TechCrunch – GM expects to save up to $1 billion on Cruise costs
TechCrunch reports on how CEO and Chair of GM Mary Barra made the best financial decision in shutting down Cruise. This will allow them to, unlike Tesla, maintain profitability in 2025.
Forbes – Study Shows Automatic Emergency Braking Improving As Trump Looks To Kill Mandate
Forbes reports that Automatic Emergency Braking has been shown to be effective, yet the mandate for it might be killed by the Trump administration.
SF Examiner – Waymo went on SF lobbying spree last year
San Francisco Examiner reports on how Waymo more than double the times in 2024 where it had paid lobbyists meet with city government officials. Biggest effort is trying to get permission to serve San Francisco Airport, which would be quite lucative for Waymo.
SF Chronicle – Could robotaxis be yet another reason for S.F.’s lack of new housing?
San Francisco Chronicle reports on how robotaxis are taking up valuable property that was was intended for housing.
SF Chronicle – Person, dog killed as car at ‘extreme rate of speed’ hits 6 others in S.F., including Waymo
San Francisco Chronicle reports on how a person and a dog were killed and multiple cars were destroyed including a Waymo. This happened even though robotaxis are widely available in San Francisco. This dramatically shows that robotaxis are not the answer for safety. Instead, better street design is.
Mission Local – Tesla crashes into Mission District plant store
Mission Local reports on yet another crash due to Tesla "automatic" driving system. The idea that Tesla could create a working robotaxi system based on this technology is ludicrous.
SF Examiner – Court rejects San Francisco’s Waymo challenge
SF Examiner reports that the state court has rejected a lawsuit from December 2023 by the City of San Francisco. The lawsuit was attempting to overturn the California PUC's decision from October of 2023 to allow Waymo (and Cruise) to provide citywide robotaxi service.
Reuters – US closes probe into GM Cruise self-driving vehicles over pedestrian risks
Reuters reports on how NHTSA closes its probe into Cruise with respect to pedestrian safety. The probe was closed simply because Cruise is no longer viable.
Bloomberg – Why AI Investors Should Worry About the Self-Driving Car Crash
Bloomberg publishes one of the best written articles on the hype of the robotaxi business, and its inevitable fall. It shows how all of the robotaxi companies (including Waymo, but especially Tesla) have been dependent on hype to make the false claim that robotaxis have a near-term financially robust future. Yet they are still shockingly dependent on support by a large number of actual humans. And now, not only do robotaxis appear to be post peak bubble, generative AI companies will surely be following the same trajectory.
electrek – Elon Musk misrepresents data that shows Tesla is still years away from unsupervised self-driving
electrek reports on how it isn't just his video game playing skills that Elon lies about. Elon has continued to mislead investors and the public on how well FSD is working. Tesla makes claims only with respect to highway driving, and won't release the data needed to fully understand the issue. Meanwhile, crowd-sourced data shows that FSD improvements have been quite small, sometimes with big regressions, and that Tesla is nowhere near being able to provide a truly autonomous driving system needed for robotaxis.
Washington Post – Self-driving-car executives excited for Trump (and Musk) to take the wheel
Washington Post reports on how while the public continues to be very reluctant about robotaxis, the industry is planning on plowing ahead due to the expectation that the new Trump administration will gut safety standards.
electrek – Tesla issues recall on over 200,000 for the self-driving computer failure
electrek reports that Tesla's issues with its self-driving computers is so big that they have had to issue a recall for 200,000 vehicles due to the vehicles not meeting NHTSA requirements.
Detroit Free Press – Insurance Institute study: Vehicle safety systems couldn’t see reflective clothing
Detroit Free Press reports that several crash avoidance systems were flummoxed by reflective safety’s clothing, leading to significant danger.
Mission Local – On Mayor Lurie’s first day, stalled Waymos disrupt his Chinatown party
Mission Local reports on how Waymos responded incredibly quickly to Mayor Lurie's inauguration party by completely gumming up the streets.
