Autonomous Vehicles, Starting and Stopping – Where Are They Going Now?

We’re way past any idea that driverless cars will soon become the norm – but they are still progressing, in the taxi niche and elsewhere.  What have they shown us in the past 3½ months?

Where one large automaker’s products won’t be going is to give rides for hire, as “G.M. Will Stop Developing Self-Driving Taxis” (Jack Ewing and Eli Tan, The New York Times, December 10^th). They will still work on autonomous vehicles, as General Motors “said it would fold its Cruise subsidiary, which was working on that project, into its main operations, allowing formerly separate development teams to jointly develop fully autonomous vehicles for private owners.”  Although “the decision removes G.M. from a business that some in the industry believe could someday be worth hundreds of billions of dollars,” the company’s CEO “suggested that the payoff was too far in the future to justify the expense,” and said it “would focus on technology that will allow vehicles sold to consumers to steer, accelerate and brake without driver intervention under certain conditions.” 

Recent mishaps include “Passenger in Waymo self-driving car gets stuck circling parking lot while trying to make flight” (Pilar Arias, Fox Business, January 7^th).  The man called Waymo customer support, who fixed the problem in “just over 5 minutes” whereupon the vehicle delivered him to the airport.  The piece did not say if, as the passenger asked, the car had been hacked.

In further expansion, we have “Uber offering driverless rides in major Texas city” (Daniella Genovese, Fox Business, March 4^th).  Uber can offer Austin customers “a Waymo fully autonomous all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicle, which will allow them to travel across 37 miles in the area.”  Those two companies “joined forces in 2022 to bring autonomous rides to the public.”  To get such service, “riders till first have to opt in” to it, and those “who request an UberX, Uber Green, Uber Comfort or Uber Comfort Electric could be matched” with such a vehicle, which they can choose to accept.  “When the car arrives, riders will be able to unlock the vehicle, open the trunk, and start the trip in their app.”  It will cost the same as the usual amounts for these four Uber variations, and, in case you were wondering, users “won’t be prompted to tip.”

As well, a “Fleet of Amazon-backed self-driving taxis will soon hit the Las Vegas streets with public rides” (Sunny Tsai, again Fox Business, March 6^th).  “Ten years in the making,” they will be provided by Zoox, and “don’t look like standard cars,” as “they have four seats inside the vehicle, and riders face each other, sitting in rows of two.”  They “will be able to call their taxi on an app,” and “rides will be competitively priced to other existing offers.”  All of that could become a standard for additional service expansions.

Most recently, we merged automata, driverless vehicles, and freight capacity, as a “New delivery robot can haul 2,200 pounds of your stuff” (Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, March 9^th).  It looks like a truck with two rear ends, with its “194 cubic feet of cargo space” designed to be “modular,” so “it can be customized to suit various business needs.”  Although the article used the present tense throughout, it did not mention areas or specific locations where these are in use.  Let’s hope it really is, and that the progress shown in the last four articles here – I include the second, since the problem resolution time was so short – represents what we will continue to see.