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.
Reuters reports that has ruled that the California Department of Motor Vehicles should indeed investigate whether Tesla has overstated its vehicles' self-driving capabilities. It is a separate ruling from the recent May 15th one on whether a class-action lawsuit against Tesla's claims can proceed.
Electrek reports that Zoox is still trying to provide robotaxi service. Limited testing will now occur in Miami and Austin. But this just a baby step forward, first with just mapping streets using a Toyota Highlander. They are still far away from providing passenger service. In fact, they are so far away they put out pathetic press releases like this one.
Interesting Engineering reports on how some researchers are proposing adding a fourth light to traffic signals to help facilitate traffic. Note how this idea does not take into account that there are pedestrians out there.
CNBC reports that once again Elon Musk has lied to Tesla shareholders. He boasted that Tesla would be making a huge investment into AI in order to power their supposed robotaxi system. But it turns out that he has been directing the scarce supply of Nvidia AI chips from Tesla to xAI, a separate company that Musk has a huge financial stake in.
Fortune reports that Elon Musk is now facing a lawsuit alleging that he misled investors with fake "epic end of year" sales info while dumping billions of dollars of stock using insider information. This is of course similar to Musk recently propping up stock price with fake robotaxi claims.
NY Times article on the difficulties Cruise is facing to restarting commercial robotaxi service. Given their many problems described in the article one has to assume that GM will dump Cruise sooner rather than later.
Fortune reports on how difficult the robotaxi business is, and how Waymo has outlasted the other companies. But somehow Fortune is impressed with Waymo serving 50,000 rides/week. At $20/ride this is only about $50 million a year, a pittance compared to the billion dollars+ that they are spending.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) reports that the federal regulation of vehicle automation is currently completely inadequate. Six US senators have called attention to how the NHTSA needs to change their hands off approach to autonomous vehicles.
Video from KTVU showing two Waymos completely blocking the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Impressive!
Article from NY Times explaining how not only do people need to worry about driverless cars and semis, but now driverless trains are killing people.
Waymos keep getting stuck in Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco.
Reuters reports that the NHTSA has found multiple additional incidents of dangerous driving.
Washington Post reports that all of the major robotaxi companies are now under federal investigation for safety issues.
StreetBlogs reports that autonomous vehicles are not doing very well, and many people are skeptical of them. Now advocates are demanding regulations for safety.
Electrek reports that after years of refusing, Tesla is finally reporting more in depth data for its (non-auto) Autopilot. And the numbers explain why they stopped reporting data completely back in 2022.
