Waymo Vs Cruise: Which Handles San Francisco Streets Better?

Table Of Content

• We've heard about self-driving taxis forever, but they're just starting to become a reality
• Best Travel Insurance Companies
• Waymo vs. Cruise: Which robotaxis crashed more in San Francisco?
• Blocking first responders and other risks
• This is Tesla’s riveting fix for recalled Cybertruck accelerator pedals
• Autonomous vehicles

Comma is building an open source self-driving system designed to run on a smartphone. Comma's strategy is to enable early adopters to modify their own cars to take steering inputs from Comma's smartphone-based software—and then use the data harvested from those early customers to further improve the software in much the same way as Tesla. Like Tesla, Comma has eschewed lidar, arguing that it can achieve adequate performance with smartphone-grade cameras. More fundamentally, it's hard to watch videos of Tesla's software in action and conclude that Tesla is in a leading position—or even that it is catching up to the leaders. Tesla's unfortunately named "full self-driving beta" software routinely flubs scenarios that Waymo's cars have been able to handle for years. Many of the public comments in favor of the applications to expand AV ride-hailing came from those representing the interests of people who are blind.

We've heard about self-driving taxis forever, but they're just starting to become a reality

Apple, which has been working on its own secretive car project for years, reported driving 18,805 miles, more than doubling its mileage in 2019. The tech giant also reported 130 disengagements, up from 64 the previous year. Cruise, a majority owned subsidiary of General Motors and Waymo’s main rival, is also prepping to launch a similar service in the state. And interestingly enough, its mileage number remained more or less the same last year as compared to 2019. The company reported driving 770,049 miles, a 7-percent decrease over 2019.

Best Travel Insurance Companies

Rivian gained positive momentum in the second quarter as it ramped up EV sales, narrowed losses, reduced costs and shored up its supply chain. The company also raised its production guidance for the year from 50,000 to 52,000 vehicles and said it expects its adjusted earnings guidance for the year to improve to a loss of $4.2 billion. Motiv Power Systems said it plans to launch a medium-duty chassis with a cab that can be used in various sizes of box trucks, step vans, shuttle buses, refrigerated vehicles and vocational vehicles. Bird has been trying to bring down costs, and it seems to be working.

Waymo vs. Cruise: Which robotaxis crashed more in San Francisco?

The goal of these projects it to take humans from behind the wheel of vehicles, and as we know, human driving creates quite a bit of risk. Waymo makes a good case that they are not creating undue risk on the roads with their pilot operations, and in fact are reducing it. Cruise does not make this case nearly as well — which is not to say that they are failing at this, but rather that they aren’t being as open on the details. Of course, none of the other companies are engaged in major uncrewed operations, or providing much data on it. It’s hard to get statistics on how often human drivers hit things like these with no damage to the car or the object.

Blocking first responders and other risks

The vast majority of crash incidents Cruise reported to regulators involved a situation in which the Cruise car was not at fault because it was legally stopped, rear-ended or had the right of way, according to a company spokesperson. Meanwhile, Cruise is starting up again, but this time with humans in the driver's seat. Elon Musk has promised to unveil his robotaxi this summer, and while your doubt about anything Musk says is well warranted, you never know. So I think that one way or another, we are going to make some version of this standard for many of us in the not-far-off future.

Unsurprisingly, there was much less autonomous vehicle testing in California in 2020 compared to years prior. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns forced many AVs off the road in the early part of the year. Robotaxis are getting more buzz as the technology advances in fits and starts.

The company took out full-page ads in major newspapers across the U.S. claiming humans are terrible drivers and robotaxis could save lives. Cruise also launched a petition this week, urging the CPUC to grant its permit expansion, and has amassed 2,600 signatures. The California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) votes in favor of the AV companies come in spite of mounting opposition from residents and city agencies that have urged caution and a more incremental approach to expansion. Since AVs hit the streets of San Francisco, there have been numerous instances of vehicles malfunctioning and stopping in the middle of the street — referred to as “bricking” — blocking the flow of traffic, public transit and emergency responders.

Cruise Suspends Driverless Operations, Waymo Pushes Ahead - Planetizen

Cruise Suspends Driverless Operations, Waymo Pushes Ahead.

Posted: Mon, 30 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

So it’s not clear if this should be counted as an at-fault crash to compare Waymo with a human, but even if it is, as the only one in a million miles, that’s a better record than the typical human. Waymo saw 18 minor contact events and 2 events which required a vehicle to be towed away, which means they go into NHTSA’s collision database CISS. 20 minor events in 1M miles is more than the 10 that might be expected for a human driver based on other data. However, Waymo states that all events involving another vehicle had it do something at fault, though it’s not clear if the Waymo might share some fault in a few of them. In event 3, they hit a construction cone (no damage.) In event 15 they hit a plastic sign blowing across the roadway. In event 17 they hit a parking lot barrier arm but did not damage it.

While Waymo still seems to be the technology leader, it hasn't capitalized on its lead as well as many people—apparently including Waymo's own leadership—expected a few years ago. Cruise SF territory (night.) Most of rest of the city except core of CBD and Twin Peaks available ... “The reception from Angelenos so far has been exceptional, and we look forward to welcoming more riders into our service over time,” he said in a statement. Jarvis Murray, for-hire transportation administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), pointed out Monday a range of other risks.

Both companies are way ahead of other players, who are only operating a few robotaxi services with safety drivers ready behind the wheel. Some companies in China are operating with no safety drivers there. Tesla’s prototype self-driving system is not capable of operation without extremely frequent supervising driver intervention on any roads, anywhere. Motional has been operating service with safety drivers in some locations, including in partnership with Uber and Lyft. As previously mentioned, Waymo’s Bay Area operations are split between paid rides in vehicles with safety drivers (aka “drivered rides”) and unpaid trips in driverless vehicles. Waymo has a list of pre-approved members of the public called “Trusted Testers” who ride in these driverless (or “rider-only”) vehicles that sign non-disclosure agreements to test the company’s early technology.

On the axis of weather, we're now doing rain and fog… and then the next, eventually, will be snow… What we're trying to make sure of is that we don't go to a city just to rubber-stamp it, just to be able to say that we're autonomous there. [On top of that], being able to add rain, for example – all right, you're safe enough when you're driving through good weather, through this tight intersection with a speeding agent. You can't wait for the rain in real life to occur exactly when you want to push your system in that way, but being able to simulate rain requires that infrastructure but also enough algorithms and realism on top to be able to push this. Gogoro recorded a net loss of just $5.6 million, which is way down from a net loss of $121.1 million last year, which was primarily due to a one-time $178.8 million listing expense for its SPAC merger in 2022. In adjusted terms, Gogoro recorded $12.9 million, which is up from $9.3 million in Q2 2022.

Autonomous vehicles registered in California traveled approximately 1.99 million miles in autonomous mode on public roads in 2020, a decrease of about 800,000 miles from the previous year, according to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. These mileage figures were reported as part of the state’s annual “disengagement reports,” which all licensed operators are required to submit. In addition to the miles driven, the reports list the frequency at which human safety drivers were forced to take control of their autonomous vehicles (also known as a “disengagement”). In January, Waymo reached 1 million miles of public autonomous driving with no human monitor in the vehicle. Waymo had a few years ago announced 6 million miles with safety drivers, but this is a different milestone. With their announcement, however, Waymo has published detailed safety data, including descriptions of all incidents with their vehicles which involved a contact and a number of other statistics.