Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
All the robotaxi companies claim that their safety is much better than obsolete human drivers. But are they really safer given that they seem to crash so often? This clearly needs to be investigated further.
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.
SF Chronicle reports that parents continue to knowingly break California regulations and allow their kids to ride in Waymos unaccompanied. And Waymo doesn't seem to care in the least that they are regularly violating their state permit. What could possibly go wrong??
Fun!
Mission Local reports that indeed, a Zoox vehicle struck another car, resulting in an injury and damage to both vehicles. And Zoox isn't even providing full passenger service yet.
Waymo does it again. A whole flotilla of them managed to block quite a large intersection. This occurred because they still do not "know" how to handle traffic signal outages.
SF Chronicle reports that Waymo continues to try to hide necessary safety related information about the extensive problems that occurred during the power blackout. They clearly are trying their best to not work with the regulators.
SF Chronicle reports on the buffonery that occurred between City Hall and Waymo during the recent power outage. Clearly neither the city nor Waymo was prepared for such a serious problem.
And it is definitely past time for Mayor Lurie to acknowledge that illegally allowing Waymos on car-free Market Street was a huge mistake on his part.
Waymo vehicle shows incredibly poor and dangerous driving as it gets stuck on a light rail track with a train approaching just behind it. The passenger wisely got the heck out of that vehicle. Another unhappy Waymo customer!
David Zipper reports in Bloomberg on how regardless of the debate of whether robotaxis are safer or not, there are definitely many better ways to improve traffic safety. Just look at cities that are already much safer.
NY Times reports on how Waymo continues to flaunt California regulations and allows unattended minors to ride in Waymos.
The Telegraph reports that Waymos and other robotaxis will be coming to England. But also notes that some of their "supervisors" are located all the over in the Philippines. Sure hope nothing goes wrong (as it has many times in San Francisco)!
Waymo finally acknowledges that its vehicles are not autonomous and that they need human help when encountering complicated situations, such as traffic signals being out during a power outage. Yet they continue to mislead the public. The blackout caused the 5G cellular system that Waymo uses to go down, making human help impossible. The vehicles needing human help is an inherent and unfixable problem for the current Waymo driving system.
