Table Of Content
- Cruise wasn’t hiding the pedestrian-dragging video from regulators — it just had bad internet
- Electric scooter rider critically injured in hit-and-run, San Francisco police say
- Another robotaxi company wins (25 percent)
- California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo
- This is Tesla’s riveting fix for recalled Cybertruck accelerator pedals
Only two VREs involved first responders, and the average resolution time was clocked at 14 minutes. During a meeting with the CPUC on Monday to discuss how AVs interact with first responders, Waymo said it has about 100 vehicles on the road at any given time, and about 250 on its equipment list. Cruise said it has roughly 300 vehicles operating at night and 100 during the daytime in San Francisco. A “no” vote would certainly delay, if not completely derail, Cruise’s and Waymo’s plan to launch commercial operations in the state.
Cruise wasn’t hiding the pedestrian-dragging video from regulators — it just had bad internet
And it's reasonable to have concerns about this tech as it rolls out. Waymo's rival Cruise halted its service last fall after a slew of incidents, including a grisly one where a self-driving Cruise dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by a human-driven car. In time, robocars will become the best road citizens, and some of the most cooperative. As safety milestones are generated, the next thing that projects will be judged by will be their road citizenship. As such, we might hope to see numbers on how often vehicles are needing to pause to resolve problems or blocking traffic, in particular how often they need remote assistance or worse, a rescue driver. While these events generally are not significant safety problems, and so should be expected and tolerated to a reasonable degree in the early years, companies will soon want to show they are doing well at this.
Electric scooter rider critically injured in hit-and-run, San Francisco police say
Waymo, the self-driving company under Alphabet, began testing its robotaxis in Atlanta on Tuesday, adding another city to its ever-expanding testing and deployment domain. But others raised concerns about being stuck in a vehicle for hours a day with another person without the ability to socially distance. They chafed at being asked to come back to work while the salaried employees in the engineering and software divisions of these companies got to continue to work from home. The ability of these companies to quickly add territories provides information to help answer this question. Cruise announced it would open in the two new cities by the end of the year, and it pulled it off — though only at night.
Another robotaxi company wins (25 percent)
But if you’re truly in a pinch, right now Cruise might offer a faster overall experience. Waymo’s cars feel like they drive faster and along a more direct route, but there appear to be far fewer of them circulating in the city, meaning wait times can stretch well past a half hour. A Cruise spokesperson said vehicles attempt to “optimize for the safest route” based on factors like traffic, real-time feedback from the fleet, roadblocks and closures.
San Franciscans beg California to stop Cruise, Waymo takeover - SFGATE
San Franciscans beg California to stop Cruise, Waymo takeover.
Posted: Tue, 08 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Backseat Driving in Cruise, Waymo Robotaxis in San Francisco - Curbed
Backseat Driving in Cruise, Waymo Robotaxis in San Francisco.
Posted: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Yellow, a Nashville-based trucking company, filed for bankruptcy and has plans to shutter. The company had received a $700 million loan from the Trump administration in 2020. I dug into Proterra’s day one declaration and while some parallels can be drawn between Proterra and other failing or defunct EV companies, this company faces specific headwinds that took it down a rocky financial path. Not even a year after the struggling company fired its founder Travis VanderZanden and replaced him with Shane Torchiana, it appears the company is facing yet another executive shakeup. Torchiana is jumping ship (as many execs at Bird have already done), to be replaced by the company’s rather new CFO. Reminder that you can drop us a note at If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.
California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo
You can't get a Waymo to pick you up at San Francisco International Airport, for instance, or take you across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. You really are in a car, driving around the city, with no one in the driver's seat. The impact with the barking lot barrier arm is also one of concern. While it is harder to deal with moving objects, parking lot barrier arms are expected to move and the Waymo system should be ready for that.
Electric vehicles, charging and batteries
All told, from pickup to drop-off, the Waymo took roughly 27 minutes to drive from Taraval Street to Alta Plaza Park—roughly seven minutes slower than an average car or Uber driver, but certainly faster than public transit. The former startup is on pace to have 2,000 employees and to commercialize a ride-sharing service in the coming years. The goal is to launch in San Francisco and optimize for the complicated, urban streetscape, on the reasonable assumption that any service should be where the riders are and that scaling Cruise to new markets should be focused on similarly dense cities. Dozen of companies are testing autonomous technologies on California roadways, but some are racking up lots of miles, while some are barely doing anything at all.
Waymo has begun testing its AVs in Los Angeles but will require an additional permit from the CPUC to start a commercial service there. On people we share the city with – communities, groups, like first responders, firefighters and so on – we're continuously engaged with them. We have trained more than 5,000 first responders in SF alone, multiple training sessions, and based on that have [brought] new features. For example, now we can signal intensities to firefighters that, "Hey, we're about to make a U-turn and get out of this scene." Waymo and Cruise reported 103 and 68 collisions in San Francisco since Jan. 1, 2022, according to the latest records available from the DMV. The firms must report all collision incidents to the DMV, the California Public Utilities Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of regulatory requirements.
Waymo And Cruise have Both Hit 1M Miles With No Driver, But Waymo Publishes Detailed Safety Data
Cruise and Waymo offered very different routing options, with the Waymo choosing a more direct route along busier roadways and Cruise opting for a more circuitous route. A Cruise source, meanwhile, pointed out the company's remarkable improvement in the California stats. This is critical, as Cruise intends to launch in San Francisco and has concentrated on dealing with the unique challenges of the urban setting.
Before issuing any permits, the SFMTA argued that the CPUC should collect better and new AV data (including unexpected stops and duration of the stops) and create a performance evaluation framework and methods for analysis of the data. The CPUC could then authorize the incremental expansion of AV services using that framework and the data collected. In addition to blocking traffic and first responders, Murray said that LA agencies were concerned about technical failures like software glitches or sensor malfunctions leading to accidents or unexpected behavior, as well as cybersecurity threats. According to Cruise’s data, from January 1 to July 18, 2023, there were 177 VREs, and of those, 26 occurred when a passenger was in a vehicle.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Friday that Tesla would reveal a robotaxi product in August, though he gave no details. In a win for the autonomous vehicle industry, California regulators have given the green light to Cruise and Waymo to offer commercial robotaxi services across San Francisco 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Waymo and Cruise both insist that safety, including the safety of their contract workers, is a top concern. But several drivers have accused the companies of exploiting loopholes to get cars back on the road in defiance of local public health orders.
In theory, operating with a safety driver should be similar to unmanned operation, except there is nobody to intervene and take the wheel if there is an urgent problem. Both teams have remote operators who can give the car instructions, but they can’t directly drive it nor respond by grabbing the wheel if the car is about to hit something. Safety drivers are trained to intervene any time there is anything concerning, so they often do so when the car would have resolved the matter. To test that, teams will run the situation through their simulator to find out what would have happened had nobody intervened. When it says something bad would have happened, that’s a cause for major concern.
Cruise, in particular, was criticized for deploying non-delivery vehicles despite public health orders banning regular autonomous vehicle testing. Cruise said the extra vehicles were needed for R&D support for the delivery operation. Supporters of robotaxis have countered that human drivers have a terrible safety record, with traffic deaths topping 40,000 a year in the U.S. Waymo has not reported a death or serious injury from its technology, and Waymo vehicles appear to be generally more observant of traffic laws than human drivers are, according to journalists who have ridden in them.
Waymo used simulation of all fatal crashes in their Chandler operations area to determine that their system would have prevented most of those fatalities had it been driving the not-at-fault car. It will be good if future analysis provides details on what the system could have done better in any event. While generally, if a vehicle is hit while stopped there is less it can do, but a few of the incidents are ones where the car might have been able to proactively get out of the way. In evaluating these vehicles on the road, one of the key question is whether they are putting people at significant risk, in particular, more risk than ordinary human driving does.
Right now, beyond the novelty, the big upside for me is that the fleet's cars — electric Jaguars — are comfortable and clean. And that the per-trip cost is about the same as an Uber Comfort (one level up from the base Uber X fare) — but really a bit cheaper, since you're not tipping your robot driver. Which is exactly how I felt after my last trip to San Francisco, when I took several rides in Waymo's robotaxis. Hotz's ultimate goal is for Comma to be the Android to Tesla's Apple. That is, if Tesla emerges as a clear leader in self-driving technology, other automakers will need to license their own self-driving technology to compete with Tesla.
Waymo’s expansion to Los Angeles will bring autonomous for-profit taxis to the nation’s second-largest city — and to a city long synonymous with car travel. Waymo already operates commercial robotaxi services in San Francisco and Phoenix. Cruise and Waymo already offer limited commercial services in San Francisco. If the CPUC grants Cruise and Waymo its final permits, the two companies will be able to charge for all rides, expand hourly operations and service area, and add an unlimited number of robotaxis to their fleets. Over three months, Waymo did 183 trips as part of its driverless pilot, ferried 441 passengers, and traversed 3,057 miles.
