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.
404 Media reports on how one of their delivery robots caused a pedestrian to be knocked down and injured. The company offered Promo Codes to make it all better. Meanwhile, they are pursuing felony charger against a couple of drunk students who temporarily snatched one of their robots.
SF Examiner reports on the new Waymo "safety" dashboard, which is basically just company propaganda. If Waymo was actually interested safety then they would pivot to providing cost effective driver assist technology. And they would instead alternative forms of transit, and of course, better road design.
Washington Post reports on California legislation that would require vehicles built after 2030 to warn drivers when they are speeding. Even though this would obviously improve safety, it is being fought against by automobile manufactures and the constitutional right to recklessly speed community. But if safety is the goal, this type of technology would make much more of a difference than robotaxis, given it would apply to all new cars.
NY Times reports on the myth of "driverless" robotaxis. It turns out that all of the robotaxi companies have large and expensive remote operation centers, where actual humans help drive the vehicles for the inevitable situations where automation simply does not work.
SF Examiner reports that the California state Legislature has once again approved requiring vehicles over 10,000 to have a human operator on board. It is now up to Gov Newsom to sign the legislation. But given his love of lobbyists he will most likely veto it for the second time.
Mission Local reports on how robotaxis will not be ticketed for breaking the law after all, perpetuating a two tiered system for safety.
Tesla trucks were supposed to be so clean and amazing. But Jalopnik reports that of the very few of them out on our roads, one of them crashed and caught fire, spewing toxic fumes and closing I-80 for many hours. Tesla is clearly incapable of providing something as complicated as a safe robotaxi system.
KRON4 reports that AWS is illegally putting robots on the sidewalks of Market Street in San Francisco. And they are solely for advertising, which is even more reprehensible.
TechCrunch reports that Waymo is about to test their autonomous vehicles, without safety drivers, on San Francisco Bay Area freeways.
SF Standard reports that a Waymo drove into an intersection that was occupied by a driver doing donuts. The Waymo missed a collision by only one foot. Key is that Waymos still are not able to handle unexpected situations.
Electrek reports on how crowd sourced data, limited as it is, shows that Tesla is nowhere near achieving a claimed 5x-10x improvement in miles between interventions for FSD.
AP reports that a Tesla driver using FSD struck an killed a motorcyclist in the Seattle area.
Wall Street Journal created two fascinating videos showing how investigators were able to obtain hidden Autopilot videos showing why Teslas have crashed. This is information that Tesla has tried to keep hidden, but hackers to the rescue. Tesla not using LiDAR sensors has been a deadly mistake.
NBC Bay Area reports that numerous crossing guards in San Francisco have reported close calls with Waymo robotaxis. City leaders, including the mayor, vow to hold Waymo accountable.
NY Times reports that Cruise has restarted operations in Dallas, Houston and Phoenix, though with human safety drivers. Article also reports that Cruise has lost $500 million for the first 6 months of 2024.
