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And this week, Waymo announced a $2.25-billion initial funding round, its first-ever outside investment. Many who spoke during the public comment period at the CPUC’s hearing called out the companies for not deploying robotaxis that are Americans with Disabilities Act compliant. They asked the CPUC to require clearer guidelines for companies to become ADA-compliant. Waymo only reported 21 disengagements over the course of the year, or a rate of 0.033 disengagements per 1,000 miles. That’s an improvement over the company’s rate of 0.076 per 1,000 self-driven miles in 2019. According to the San Francisco Police Department, between June 2022 and June 2023, Cruise vehicles were involved in 30 collisions, six of which resulted in injuries.
Another robotaxi company wins (25 percent)
NABSA’s fourth annual state of shared micromobility report shows that ridership in North America has returned to pre-pandemic levels. The number of cities with shared micromobility has hit an all-time high with 401 cities, and shared e-bikes and e-scooters have offset about 74 million pounds of CO2 emissions by replacing auto trips. On one of my trips, this happened on a particularly tight, winding San Francisco street. As my Waymo and I negotiated with each other, we ended up blocking multiple cars, including a minivan whose driver started honking at us in frustration. In other news, Waymo has also announced it has begun testing in Los Angeles with no safety driver on board, suggesting operations there may be imminent.
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Thirty-four minutes, nearly twice the time it would have taken in a personal vehicle. In February, Waymo recalled the software that powers its robotaxi fleet after two vehicles crashed into the same towed pickup truck in Phoenix in December. Other public comments in favor called on residents not to fear technological progress and pointed out that AVs could make streets safer and greener. Some people representing unions like Local 87 said they believed Cruise and Waymo would bring more unionized jobs to the city. Callers critical of autonomous vehicles also citied CPUC Commissioner John Reynolds‘ past role as “Managing Counsel at Cruise” as a conflict of interest.
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In July, the company shut down its self-driving trucks program to shift all its available resources to ride-hailing. If either Waymo of Cruise are to get a return on their investments, they need to grow exponentially in San Francisco and beyond. The service works similarly to other ride-hailing smartphone apps such as Flywheel, Lyft and Uber, except that Waymo’s vehicles have no human drivers present. Riders follow instructions on the app and through the vehicle’s sound system, though Waymo workers can assist remotely. Between April 2022 and April 2023, the SFMTA collected a total of 261 incidents involving a Cruise vehicle and 85 incidents involving a Waymo vehicle. Those incidents include multiple types of driving behavior, including unexpected stops, erratic driving, issues with pickup and drop-off, and collisions.
Waymo vs. Cruise: Which Robotaxis Crashed More in SF? - The San Francisco Standard
Waymo vs. Cruise: Which Robotaxis Crashed More in SF?.
Posted: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The sign being blown by the wind and the rolling shopping cart are also items you would expect humans to hit from time to time. One, involving a left turn, had the other vehicle speed and go straight at a left turn lane, but the Cruise froze and made it worse. At first glance, Cruise cars are most readily identifiable, with their blood orange stripes and clunky rooftop robotaxi gear.
Once Waymo allows members of the public access to the central business district, and can charge money, they will have the first commercially viable robotaxi service. Phoenix is so sprawled that it’s still a challenge to have a commercial service with just the downtown. Cruise and Waymo argue that SF’s streets are unsafe and that AV technology can save lives. Cruise has said that, in simulation, its AVs were involved in 92% fewer collisions as the primary contributor and 54% fewer collisions overall when benchmarked against human drivers in comparable driving environments. The state told Cruise to cut its fleet in half after a crash with a fire truck injured a passenger. If you haven’t been following, the CPUC approved the last remaining permits to Cruise and Waymo, giving the two companies the green light to offer commercial robotaxi services across San Francisco 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Of Cruise's 68 collision reports, 14 involved injuries, meaning that around 20% of the company’s crash incidents since 2022 involved injuries. Of those collisions, five required emergency medics to be called to the scene, with the most serious being an incident in which a cyclist crashed into the rear window of the robotaxi as the Cruise braked going downhill. Waymo and Cruise have defended their safety record and characterize the letters as part of the normal push-and-pull between regulators and the companies they regulate. And as we can see with their quarterly data reports, the vehicles are continuing to roll on, oblivious to the increasing drama. This is only the second quarter for which Cruise is supplying trip data to the CPUC, which is a condition of its commercial permit. And the company says its next report will show a significant increase in passengers and miles traveled as it continues to ramp up its robotaxi operation in the Bay Area.
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The company is starting with limited sales this year and will grow its capacity in 2024 if all goes well. While Waymo says it drives tens of thousands of trips a week, even the most tech-savvy people I talk to have yet to ride in one. Waymo just started testing with no safety driver in Los Angeles and is expected to soon open ... The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has twice delayed a scheduled vote for unlimited expansion of Cruise and Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco amid growing opposition from local public officials and a rash of protests.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also has a bigger appetite for risk than most of the other companies working on self-driving technology. Musk's willingness to put unproven technology on public roads may accelerate Tesla's progress even as it creates a greater risk of fatal accidents. A handful of taxi and ride-hail drivers spoke at the hearing saying they were fearful of losing their jobs and being unable to support their families if robotaxis prevailed. The CPUC ended up voting to grant the permit expansions because it did not anticipate the robotaxi services to result in significant safety risks.
In a somewhat surprise twist — given how bitterly the legal battle had become — the two companies have agreed to collaborate, TechCrunch reported. Archer also agreed to make Wisk its exclusive provider of autonomy technology to be integrated into a future autonomous variant of Archer’s Midnight aircraft, in addition to the collaboration, according to a source familiar with the settlement. When a company adds a business unit, I wonder if it’s in trouble and looking for new ways to secure revenue. Xie says that Veo is still operating profitably and sees moving into retail as a good way to expand into new markets.
Autonomous vehicles are quite possibly San Francisco’s most controversial new technology. In recent months, robotaxis have prompted public outrage by interrupting public emergencies, rolling over a fire hose during a house blaze and, in another instance, narrowly missing a light-rail car. A cohort of anti-autonomous vehicle activists in San Francisco has even taken to placing traffic cones on the hoods of Cruise and Waymo robotaxis to literally stop their progress.
The total miles driven by Waymo and Cruise, 1.39 million, is 70 percent of the total autonomous miles driven in California in 2020. Both companies briefly grounded their vehicles in the early months of the pandemic, but Cruise was back on the road by late April, using deliveries to local food banks as a pretext. Waymo followed suit, resuming limited operations in June delivering packages for two Bay Area nonprofits. Over the summer, as COVID-19 cases in California were peaking, both companies resumed regular operations. Only when the air quality became very poor during the summer’s historic wildfires did Waymo and Cruise pull their vehicles from the road — and only briefly. But this year, the reports can still serve as a time capsule of a year upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
Which is what David Margines, Waymo's director of product management, says is the service's chief appeal for customers right now. Like using it for food delivery — which is happening in Phoenix, via Uber Eats. Maybe it's for people who believe a robot is more reliable than a human driver — at least we know a Waymo won't watch TikTok while driving on the highway like a Lyft driver did when I was in their back seat a couple of years ago. And to be honest, I'm not even sure I would always order a Waymo if I had a chance.
Just last week, Waymo officially launched paid robotaxi rides in Los Angeles. In March, California regulators approved Waymo to grow its commercial robotaxi service across the San Francisco peninsula and on San Francisco freeways, which unlocks a route to San Francisco International Airport. Waymo has been offering rides to and from Phoenix’s airport since November 2022, and recently expanded to include curbside drop-off and pickup. Like many other states, Georgia’s regulation of AVs is almost nonexistent, meaning Waymo can technically drop fully autonomous vehicles on the streets today without a safety driver, provided it meets the state’s minimal risk conditions. Over the next few months, Waymo will deploy a handful of cars driven manually by humans to gather mapping data and get familiar with Atlanta’s environment, Sandy Karp, a Waymo spokesperson, told TechCrunch. Later, Waymo aims to test its robotaxis in Atlanta without the safety driver in the front seat.
In one, they were part of a group of cars stopping slowly for a red, and they were rear-ended. In another, as a light turned yellow, another car cut in front of them and then braked hard. Human driven cars have a police-reported crash about every 500,000 miles so this is in line with that number, but with blame on the other vehicles, the Waymo’s record surpasses human performance. Now, city officials are asking the CPUC to pump the brakes on authorizing the companies to add more AVs to the roads. They cite specific instances when Cruise’s robotaxis have obstructed emergency vehicles as evidence that the robotaxi experiment may have gone too far. While Waymo and Cruise are hot competition with each other, the Bay Area’s ongoing experiment with robotaxis is not a race.
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