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.
Hoodline SF reports that even though most attention is towards Waymo and Cruise, Zoox has had their share of mishaps and are now being investigated by the NGTSA.
arsTechnica provides further information on the NHTSA investigation into "unexpected behavior" by Waymo's robotaxis. 22 reports of the cars malfunctioning!
Reuters reports that Tesla's statements on their autonomous vehicles is now being investigated as possible securities or wire fraud by misleading investors and consumers about its vehicles' self-driving capabilities. This will not end well.
The recent torching of a Waymo robotaxi shows that there simply is no smooth sailing for the company. Sure, they might drive somewhat better than Cruise vehicles. But they still have serious flaws that show that long term viability is doubtful. Plus they do stupid things, and when they do they are quite vulnerable. Therefore they have now become the target of robotaxi ire.
Article from Futurism.com, with a video, showing an autonomous vehicle driving the chaotic streets of India. Somehow the article fails to point out the irony of spending lots of money trying to develop an autonomous vehicle for a place where human drivers are extremely cheap.
Yahoo Finance article on how Dustin Moskovitz, a cofounder of Facebook, claims that Tesla is faking Full Self Driving and other numbers enough to now constitute fraud.
Editors note: this article is useful because it provides more details on the NHTSA findings. In particular, the NHTSA stated evidence that “Tesla’s weak driver engagement system was not appropriate for Autopilot’s permissive operating capabilities.” See full original article by Sean O’Kane of TechCrunch The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration…
NY Times article on how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Tesla for safety issues with Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, which have together led to at least 29 fatal crashes.
SF Chronicle article on how Waymo drove across double yellow line into oncoming traffic for two full blocks. And Waymo describes the motivation as 'safety'? Hah! Full video of incident is included for your viewing enjoyment.
Article from The Verge on how NYC will be allowing robotaxis, but only with human drivers. Importantly, to get a permit operators will need to first report "disengagements" from service in another city. This is critical information that the robotaxi operators have so far refused to hand over.
Forbes article on how a Waymo ran through a red light, causing a rider of a scooter to crash. The vehicle was being remotely operated, and the operator apparently didn't see the red traffic signal. This shows that Waymo has a backup system, but it is not safe either.
Waymo announces another data challenge, but still refuses to provide safety related data. And they are only paying in Google Cloud credits.
Cruise posts an update on their blog indicating that they are doing all this great stuff with respect to safety, yet there is absolutely no new information. Why on earth did they post this article??
Entrepreneur.com reports that Tesla paid no income tax, yet still paid their execs billions. And yet they claim that LiDAR is to expensive for autonomous vehicles.
AAA reports that 91% of surveyed drivers are skeptical overall of fully self-driving vehicles, but are very interested in advanced driver assistance systems such as emergency braking. This indicates that there is not much financial opportunity in robotaxis.
