Nobody said the future was going to be easy.
Consider the autonomous vehicle, a feature in many science fiction movies and a goal for automakers and technicians in the real world.
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Tesla (TSLA) -) CEO Elon Musk has been saying for lo these many years that fully autonomous vehicles are right around the bend.
"I know I’m the boy who cried FSD,” he said on Tesla's second-quarter earnings call. “But man, I think we’ll be better than human by the end of this year.”
Waymo, which is backed by Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) -), and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors (GM) -), have both been operating autonomous taxi service in several American cities.
There have been challenges. Cruise, which announced a start of services in Houston, its fourth major city, has had some problems in San Francisco, where protesters were to able to shut down driverless taxies by placing a traffic cone on the hood.
In August, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles asked Cruise to reduce its driverless fleet by 50% in San Francisco while it investigates "recent concerning incidents" involving the vehicles.
City officials cited at least 58 incidents since April 2022 where Cruise and Waymo’s driverless taxis interfered with emergency response efforts.
Rough ride for robotaxies
In the most serious case, a woman was severely injured in San Francisco on Oct. 2 after a hit-and-run driver plowed into her, launching the pedestrian into the path of a Cruise car.
The autonomous vehicle came to a stop on top of the pedestrian, according to fire officials, who said they had to use the "jaws of life" to lift the car off of the woman, who was trapped underneath. Fire Department.
The victim was transported to SF General Hospital with “multiple traumatic injuries.”
Cruise said it plans to roll out a suite of technological upgrades intended to make its driverless cars more adept at responding during emergencies, Transport Topics reported on Oct. 12.
The upgrades include better navigating around double-parked ambulances and fire trucks to avoid blocking traffic, better detection of sirens and flat fire hoses and allowing first responders emergency access to move the autonomous vehicles.
The company will also start receiving direct city notifications to help avoid emergency scenes altogether.
Cruise Vice President of Global Government Affairs Prashanthi Raman said the improvements were informed by the company’s ongoing dialogue with San Francisco's public safety agencies.
“I think for us, it’s really about the fact that we’ve driven more than 5 million miles, and we’re going to see some rare events that happen with Cruise first,” she said. “We can’t expect perfection, but we do believe that these will help reduce accidents on the roadways in the aggregate.”
Meanwhile, Waymo has expanded its robotaxi service to sunny Southern California.
'Waymo now works in Los Angeles!'
The company, which has been testing around the LA area since 2019, kicked off its Waymo One service on Oct. 11.
The company, which also has robotaxi service in San Francisco and Phoenix, said that the Waymo One Tour would start beachside in Santa Monica and Venice and make multiple stops across L.A. neighborhoods. Anyone who is interested in the service can sign up online for a free week of rides.
Waymo now works in Los Angeles! 🌴
— Jeff 💙✌️ (@JeffTutorials) October 11, 2023
Super smooth ride. Can’t beat free too. pic.twitter.com/lwrKyU9aru
"Waymo now works in Los Angeles!" one person said on X, formerly Twitter, and posted a video of the driverless vehicle in action. "Super smooth ride. Can’t beat free too."
However, there were also protesters, who reportedly chanted “Waymo? Hell no!” and distributed leaflets about the dangers posed by driverless cars and trucks.
“We cannot allow the unchecked deployment of untested technology on our roads,” Chris Griswold, president of Teamsters Joint Council 42, said in a statement. “Our priority is safety and the protection of jobs."
"We urge all local elected leaders in L.A. County to hold companies like Waymo accountable by ensuring that this technology is thoroughly tested and regulated before more damage is done to our communities, as we have seen in other regions of the country," he said.
Waymo said in an email that "we appreciate that people have different viewpoints and encourage them to learn more about the positive impacts autonomous ride hailing is having on safety, accessibility and sustainability.”
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