Robotaxis score a huge victory in California with approval to operate 24 7

Table Of Content

• California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo
• Will self-driving cars solve our traffic and street safety problems? A tech historian says no
• Cruise, Waymo get green light to give paid rides 24/7 across San Francisco
• Self Driving Car
• Are You Ready for More Driverless Taxis? CPUC Votes to Let Cruise, Waymo Expand in SF

A Waymo spokesperson noted in a statement that "Waymo was already able to operate a 24/7 service across the entire city of San Francisco. The permit grants Waymo the ability to start charging for our rides." The company is headquartered in Foster City but has started testing its cars on limited San Francisco roads, including around Coit Tower. Zoox’s rainbow-and-white-colored test SUVs are often spotted rolling behind the Best Buy on Harrison Street in the Mission.

California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo

Robotaxis face setback in San Francisco. - Emerging Tech Brew

Robotaxis face setback in San Francisco..

Posted: Thu, 29 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

They would be able to operate similarly to Uber or Lyft — travel anywhere in the city, at any time of day, and charge money for the rides. But Dan Chatman, chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning, says the rollout of robotaxis is inevitable — and not just for San Francisco, or California. Now, they prowl the streets of several large cities, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Miami. Cruise began offering the public a waitlist for autonomous ride hailing in San Francisco in February of 2022.

Will self-driving cars solve our traffic and street safety problems? A tech historian says no

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Cruise, Waymo get green light to give paid rides 24/7 across San Francisco

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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. They’re also calling for more transparent data sharing from the AV companies.

San Francisco moves to center of robotaxi universe after California agency vote - Reuters

San Francisco moves to center of robotaxi universe after California agency vote.

Posted: Fri, 11 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

He called the dozens of Fire Department incidents “anecdotal data analysis lacking sufficient rigor.” He added that earlier deployment rules passed by the CPUC are set in stone and can’t be changed without a lengthy rulemaking process. The Fire Department made public reports of 55 such incidents over the last year and a half, most of them occurring just in the last several months. 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. The companies also shared data on instances in which someone from their team had to go and physically move a bricked AV, which they referred to as a “vehicle retrieval event” or VRE. The CPUC’s decision Thursday could also influence how other cities choose to regulate the growth of AVs. By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation.

It also marks the beginning of a grand experiment in public safety as thousands of multi-ton vehicles operated via artificial intelligence attempt to safely negotiate the hills and narrow streets of San Francisco. The state is a hub of tech activity with large concentrations of AV engineers located in and near the Bay Area, making it a natural place for development and testing. It gets tricky, however, once a company wants to deploy commercial operations in California, a state with some of the strictest autonomous vehicle regulation in the country. The California Public Utilities Commission’s bailiwick is passenger safety, a fact Waymo officials noted last week when making the startling admission that they didn’t even bother turning over safety data unless there was a passenger in the car.

Both Cruise and Waymo cited their unblemished safety records as proof their robotaxis are less dangerous than vehicles operated by people who can be distracted, intoxicated or just lousy drivers. However, in the most recent earnings conference call for shareholders, Cruise CEO and CTO Kyle Vogt described a rosy scenario approaching, when their multibillion dollar investments might finally break out onto the open road of profitability and any current issues would be resolved. In fact, he argues driverless robotaxis will ultimately be safer and more convenient than regular cars. After a contentious public hearing with hours of public comment, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Thursday authorized Cruise and Waymo to begin offering paid rides to the public at all hours of the day and across San Francisco. With all the hubbub surrounding Cruise and Waymo, it’s easy to forget that San Francisco is actually the testing ground for at least three major autonomous vehicle companies.

No prison time for developer who bribed city officials for 18 years

Under previous permits, Cruise and Waymo operated some 550 driverless cars in San Francisco, though figures from the companies indicated they would collectively have only about 400 on the road at any given time. Today's decision by California regulators means the companies will be able to operate an unlimited number of robot cars that charge for rides on San Francisco’s streets. But the companies say their transition to a full-blown, Uber-like taxi service will take time.

“Some of that’s beyond the reach of any one individual company,” he said. Besides tinkering the technology controlling the robotaxis, Cruise and Waymo also said they have trained hundreds of San Francisco police and firefighters how to interact with the driverless vehicles. The training included instructions on how to gain manual control of the robotaxis — a process that can involve removing hundreds of pounds of equipment from the vehicles.

Currently, an elite group of San Franciscans can use Cruise ride-hail services between 10 p.m. In a limited part of the city—one that excludes the majority of Downtown and the north shore. But exactly when San Francisco will be a city with more robotaxis than Ubers remains to be seen, and largely depends on how quickly the companies scale their fleets. Cruise and Waymo, though, haven’t caused any reported deaths, and they say the safety argument is on their side. Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said the state has grown weary of tech executives rushing forward with new ideas before taking their time to examine safety. On the other side, critics of the robotaxis are sending letters to the state utilities commission, planning in-person rallies and posting photos and videos to social media of the robotaxis making mistakes.

In a May 31 letter urging state regulators to continue to restrict the operations of Cruise and Waymo, San Francisco transportation officials asserted the driverless vehicles rely on a "developmental technology that is not ready for unconstrainted commercial deployment." Many vision-impaired people said they felt like the autonomous vehicles gave them a greater sense of freedom and security, allowing them to ride wherever they need to go without having to worry about harassment from rideshare drivers. Despite the fact that the DMV first gave Cruise permission to test and deploy its AVs across San Francisco, the CPUC received pushback for giving Cruise the go-ahead to expand its commercial service citywide and 24/7. The CPUC’s August hearing to determine expansion for Cruise and its competitor Waymo included hours of protestations from opponents who feared for public safety and were concerned about traffic flow. The robotaxi expansion was supported by state and local chambers of commerce, merchants’ associations, advocates for the disabled and California Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), who represents Silicon Valley. A large number of individuals spoke in favor or against the move before the CPUC vote.

California has served as one of the earliest testing grounds for autonomous vehicles (AVs), particularly robotaxis like the one’s Cruise and Waymo offer. Cruise, for example, was founded in San Francisco in 2013 and was the first company authorized to test robotaxis in California in June 2021. If their proposed expansions are approved, neither Cruise nor Waymo would be limited on how many robotaxis they could deploy in San Francisco. In a conference call with analysts last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt suggested his service might eventually build a fleet large enough to compete against the more than 10,000 human drivers now working for ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft in San Francisco.

“In the coming weeks, we’ll begin charging fares for rider-only trips across the extensive SF service area where thousands of members of the public already ride with us—the first widely available round-the-clock AV service in the city,” a company spokesperson said. A YouTube video getting forwarded around in tech circles aims to rally the tech community behind the cause of robotaxis. It was made by Garry Tan, the head of Y Combinator, an influential incubator for tech startups, including for Cruise in its early stages. He said next week’s vote is a test of California’s commitment to innovation. Cruise lost $611 million in the second quarter of this year, a rate of nearly $7 million a day, according to GM’s earnings report. Waymo’s parent company, Alphabet, does not disclose the finances of the Waymo division, but it had layoffs this year and recently scaled back its self-driving trucking project, saying it was doubling down on autonomous passenger cars.