Driverless Cars: A Sputtering Spring

Even disregarding the story about the Tesla vehicle questionably running in self-driving mode, hitting a house, and killing someone, we haven’t seen much to like here since April.

What is, or was, “Robotaxi’s single point of failure” (Tech Brew, April 2^nd)?  “A few days ago, over 100 Baidu robotaxis halted on highways in Wuhan, China.”  Attributed only to a “system malfunction,” they stopped where they were, even in fast expressway lanes.  “Some passengers reported that in-car SOS buttons didn’t work, and one college student told Wired it took 30 minutes to even connect to a customer service rep - and help never came.”  If vehicles are linked, a single cause can bring all of them down - a real exposure.

Speaking of “all of them,” we saw as “Waymo recalls massive autonomous fleet after incident flags major safety issue” (Bonny Chu, Fox Business, May 12^th). “A driverless vehicle failed to come to a complete stop after encountering flooded road conditions on a high-speed roadway,” a problem of “the company’s 5^th and 6^th generation Automated Driving Systems (ADS).”  The flooded area was “untraversable,” almost 3,800 cars were held back, and “that same day, Waymo implemented additional restrictions to reduce the risk of similar incidents in inclement weather.”

That company, long on the forefront of autonomous vehicle technology and rollouts, got hit again soon afterwards, as “Waymo pauses freeway robotaxi routes after safety and software concerns” (Michael Sinkewicz, Fox Business, May 21st).  It was dealing with “performance issues in construction zones” by “updating its software.”  Just what happened became clear in “Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis after cars enter freeway work zones” (Brittany Miller, Fox Business again, June 18^th).  There were “more than a dozen” such “incidents,” caused by a “software defect.”

Overall, “Would you ride in Waymo’s new Ojai robotaxi” (Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, June 2^nd)?  “The first public Ojai rides,” the cars offering “more legroom, bigger screens and accessibility features,” “will begin in the coming weeks,” starting in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.  They will be “free for a limited time while Waymo gathers feedback and refines the experience.”  No mention of software problems appeared here.

A potential issue worth publicizing is “When Someone Else Owns the Car, They Can Dictate Where You Travel” (Donald Kendal, The Epoch Times, June 3-9).  Potentially an issue with free robotaxi rides, it is more a concern for people someday commissioning cars which offer them free or discounted service in exchange for the likes of advertising exposure, or even for customers charged monthly amounts for auto transportation.  There is potential for other factors to sneak in.  For example, “could people be denied access to transportation services based on their political beliefs or statements they have made on social media (which has happened already)?  Could access be limited to curtail climate change?  Could environmental, social, and governance principles or other corporate social credit systems encourage companies to restrict travel based on a user’s carbon footprint?  Could the political winds of the day lead platforms to restrict rides to a firearms store, a church, or a specific political rally?”  When such arrangements appear, there should be laws already in place preventing these sorts of things.

One city doesn’t look good for the most common autonomous vehicles, as David McCabe in the June 17^th New York Times told us “Why Waymo’s Driverless Taxis Won’t Be on Your Streets Anytime Soon.”  The main objection here was not from snow, traffic, or narrow streets, but “groups that represent drivers” such as the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.  State governor Kathy Hochul unsuccessfully “introduced a budget proposal in January that would have allowed Waymo to operate in much of the state,” outside the city, where “mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he would heavily weigh the interests of taxi drivers in deciding rules for the technology.”  Much the same happened in Illinois.  Although Waymo “floated the prospect of creating a fund for displaced workers,” after their experience with Uber and Lyft that may not be enough.

One story of the eight here, though, was favorable toward autonomous vehicles, as a “humanless big rig completes first US freight run” (Kurt Knutsson, Fox News, May 5^th).  The semitrailer truck “left Houston, Texas in the middle of the night with nobody inside,” and “by morning, it had completed a 230-mile delivery near Dallas right on schedule,” with “no driver, no backup operator, and no one stepping in remotely.”  Was it, as provider Bot Auto said, “the first fully humanless, over-the-road commercial truckload in the U.S.”?  I know such vehicles have done similar things, but perhaps this was the first complete unassisted run. 

Good news, but, going forward, will stories like this predominate over the other seven?  Regular readers know I hope so.  I hope you do too.