Business & Tech Uber Unveils Robotaxi Design at CES In Las Vegas Uber's line of robotaxis that are set to hit the road in San Francisco sometime later this year made their big public debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday.
SF News Waymos Freeze in Place, Snarl Traffic En Masse During Saturday’s Citywide Power Outage Amid Saturday’s PG&E outage, social media was flooded with posts showing dozens of confused Waymos pausing at intersections as they fruitlessly attempted to contact central command, causing frazzled humans to navigate around them, which led to a temporary halt in service.
SF News Waymo Strikes Small Dog In Western Addition, Dog's Condition Not Known Weeks after one of its robotaxis struck and killed a beloved Mission District bodega cat, Waymo has confirmed that one of its cars also struck an unleashed dog.
Business & Tech Waymo Launches Freeway Service In Bay Area and LA For Select Users, SFO Service Still to Come Waymo announced Wednesday that its cars are officially being deployed on Bay Area freeways, and while not all riders will have access to the service right away, you can theoretically now take a Waymo from downtown San Francisco to downtown San Jose.
Business & Tech Tesla Rolls Out Ride-Hail Service In Bay Area, Careful Not to Call It 'Robotaxi' So, it seems that Tesla still doesn't have permits to operate a self-driving taxi service in California. But after launching just such a service for a select few users in Austin, the company appears to be doing the same thing in the Bay Area, but here they're not calling it self-driving.
Business & Tech Musk Threatens to Bring Tesla's LiDAR-Free Robotaxis to Bay Area Within Months Lest we thought that Elon Musk was finally done with the Bay Area, having closed down Xitter's offices and moved several of his companies to Texas, he's now claiming that Tesla's robotaxis will be coming to compete with Waymo soon.
Business & Tech Zoox Opens Factory In Hayward, City Very Pleased About This Amazon-owned autonomous taxi company Zoox has opened a new production facility in Hayward, which is already employing around 100 technicians, and the City of Hayward is quite happy to welcome them.
Business & Tech Waymo Takes Another Step Toward Entering Airport Taxi Market Waymo could have one of its biggest fights to date on its hands as it pushes toward providing rides between San Francisco and SFO — but a permit process is underway to allow the company to begin mapping the airport for that purpose.
Business & Tech Zoox to Begin Testing Their Funny Looking Robotaxis In SoMa Amazon-owned robotaxi concern Zoox, which is the only autonomous vehicle company to date that has put purpose-built taxis on the road that don't have steering wheels or driver's seats, is rolling out more test vehicles on the streets of SF.
Business & Tech Feds Probing Tesla ‘Full Self-Driving’ Mode After Pedestrian Killed, Plus Multiple Other Crashes Amidst several reports of Teslas in “Full Self-Driving” mode having crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one crash that killed someone, a federal road safety agency is now investigating whether the Tesla technology might be to blame.
Business & Tech Tech Bros Try to Help Waymo Entangled With Muni Bus, Leave Behind Stalled Waymo A new viral video shows a stalled Waymo getting entangled with a Muni bus this weekend, and when a gaggle of tech bros coming from an industry party try to help, they seem to just make things worse.
SF News Waymo Gets Tagged With Rider (and Little Dog) Still Inside in Mission District The latest SF anti-self-driving car shenanigans were captured on a now-viral video where a team of taggers gangs up on a Waymo and tags the bejesus out of the vehicle, while a passenger and a little dog are stuck nervously inside.
Business & Tech Cruise Comes Crawling Back, Re-Launching Driverless Cars, With Drivers, On Peninsula Autonomous taxi company Cruise is slowly trying to reintroduce its robocars in the Bay Area, one year after the company went into freefall following a brutal collision in which one of the cars dragged an injured pedestrian.
Business & Tech Beleaguered Self-Driving Car Company Cruise Teams Up With Uber for Their Comeback Bid Robotaxi company Cruise currently has its California permits suspended, but they are definitely plotting their comeback, and just announced they’re partnering to offer self-driving Cruise rides on the Uber app.
Business & Tech Waymos Infuriate SoMa Neighborhood With Cacophony of 4AM Horn-Honking In today’s episode of robot cars seeming to be very confused, we have the story of a SoMa parking lot that gets taken over by Waymos every night, and keeps the neighborhood awake as the cars incessantly honk horns at each other around 4 am.
Business & Tech Waymo Expands Robotaxi Service Onto the Peninsula, But Still Can’t Drive to SFO or on 101 Effective today, the self-driving taxi cars of Waymo are giving paid rides into Daly City and Colma, but they still can’t drive on US 101 or I-280, and they cannot drive you to the SF International Airport.
SF News After Many Waymo Near-Collisions at School Crossings, Mayor Breed Vows to Hold Waymo's Feet to the Fire An NBC Bay Area report in May detailed that 25% of SF school crossing guards said they or their school children had nearly been hit by self-driving Waymos, and now Mayor Breed is promising to hold the Google subsidiary more accountable.
Business & Tech GM’s Cruise Robotaxis Very Softly Relaunch, But Not In SF, and With Human Drivers Again In a sense, the controversial self-driving robotaxi firm Cruise is back on the road. But they’re not on the road here in SF, their fleet is now much tinier, and there are human drivers supervising things again.
SF News Alleged ‘Waymo Slasher’ Charged With Slashing the Tires on 17 Waymo Self-Driving Cars A 36-year-old man who’s apparently not fond of self-driving robotaxis allegedly went on a tire-stabbing spree against them, and stands accused of slashing Waymo tires 17 times in a three-day span, though the cars’ cameras caught him on video.
Business & Tech Waymo Opens Up SF Service To Anyone Who Wants a Self-Driving Car Ride, No More Wait List Anyone in San Francisco can now hail and ride a Waymo self-driving robotaxi, or rather, anyone in SF with the Waymo app and a working credit card, as the Google-owned autonomous company is opening its vehicles to SF’s masses.
Business & Tech Cruise Fined $112,500 by CPUC Over Pedestrian-Dragging Incident, But Avoids Independent Investigation Cruise was fined the maximum allowable fine of $112,500 for burying evidence in the incident where their car dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. But the self-driving car company got off easy, as state regulators rejected calls for an independent investigation into what actually happened.
Business & Tech Tesla In ‘Full Self-Driving’ Mode Goes Plowing Into Police Car An Orange County Tesla driver wasn’t actually driving his Tesla while cruising past the scene of a fatal car accident last week, and that Tesla in self-driving mode went and crashed into a police car.
Business & Tech Report: Many SF School Crossing Guards Say Self-Driving Cars Have Nearly Hit Them or Children A new investigative report shows that one in four San Francisco school crossing guards have had a “close call” with a self-driving vehicle, though many of the other guards say that the autonomous cars drive better than people do.
Business & Tech Waymo Now Under Federal Investigation For 22 Crash and Safety Violation Incidents Self-driving car company Waymo may have its time in the barrel coming just like the now-suspended Cruise, as the NHTSA is probing 22 separate crashes and safety incidents with their cars. Oh, and Amazon’s Zoox is being investigated too.
SF News Waymo Spotted Driving in Red Bus Lane, About to Make Illegal Left-Hand Turn A video from Sunday shows a self-driving Waymo robotaxi driving in the red ‘bus only’ lane on Van Ness Avenue, and apparently about to engage in an illegal left-hand turn.
