Autonomous Cars

Despite numerous setbacks, autonomous vehicle startups are somehow still able to get rich investors to open their wallets to them. Just today, Waabi, the driverless truck startup founded by former chief scientist at Uber’s Advanced Technology Group Raquel Urtasun, announced its Series B funding round, led by Uber and Khosla Ventures, of $200 million. The money will go toward the launch of the company’s “fully driverless, generative AI-powered autonomous trucks” by 2025. Big bucks and an elusive deadline to launch the new tech? What is this, 2017?

The legislation would have given large cities the power to tax or even restrict autonomous vehicle deployment. But after lawmakers proposed stripping local control provisions, the bill’s sponsor decided to put it on ice. AV lobbyists opposed the bill, calling it a “backdoor ban.” But supporters said cities should have more say over whether to allow driverless cars on their streets.

That’s on top of San Francisco, Las Vegas, Seattle, and Zoox’s original Foster City test. Note, though:

We won’t be deploying our purpose-built robotaxi or offering public rides in Austin or Miami just yet. Our target cities for our first commercial markets remain Las Vegas and San Francisco. But we’re exploring several cities for future commercial offerings after our initial launch.

The robotaxi company now covers 315 square miles in Metro Phoenix, making it “the largest autonomous ride-hail territory in the United States” — a totally real and not-at-all-made-up superlative. Even so, the incremental growth shows that Waymo is getting more confident in its driverless capabilities. But some argue the real confidence is when it can start adding multiple new cities in a year. And Waymo still feels like it’s not quite there yet.

Under a new state bill, cities could limit the number of autonomous vehicles on their roads, and set maximum fares that companies could charge. The bill, which passed the State Senate and is now being considered by the Assembly, is in response to a number of incidents in which robotaxis blocked emergency vehicles or caused traffic jams. Lawmakers say they want to regulate robotaxis the same way they do human-driven for-hire vehicles.

The GM-owned robotaxi company is manually testing its cars in the Texas capitol, as it continues to slowly work its way back to some semblance of a commercial service. Cruise is also operating some of its vehicles in autonomous mode in Phoenix. The company suspended its robotaxi service last year after one of its vehicle struck and drug a pedestrian for over 20 feet in San Francisco.

GM’s Cruise reportedly settled with the pedestrian who was struck by a hit-and-run driver and then drug 20 feet by one of the company’s driverless cars last October in San Francisco. The settlement, which was reached earlier this year, was between $8-12 million, according to Fortune. The pedestrian has since been released from the hospital, and Cruise just started driving autonomously in Phoenix after months on the sidelines.

That’s how many paid trips Waymo says its driverless vehicles perform each week. For all the speculation and chaos surrounding autonomous vehicles lately, its helpful to remember that fully driverless cars are operating in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix — right now. Waymo credits its “safe and deliberate approach” for its successes. Of course, a quick glance at social media will also expose a lot of deliberate driving on the wrong side of the road behavior.

The autonomous vehicle venture between Hyundai and Aptiv (which has since pulled funding) is also pausing its commercial operations and planning layoffs, TechCrunch reports. Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma says the company will focus on its core tech. The news comes at a time public trust in robotaxis are low.

The Google spinoff is expanding its testing of fully autonomous vehicles further down the San Francisco Peninsula as it looks to grow its robotaxi service area. Waymo has for years tested its vehicles around its offices in Mountain View, as well as downtown SF, and now its looking to combine it all into one big map. Only employees will be riding in the vehicles for now, with access to non-employee passengers at a future date.

Some Westworld props are being auctioned off over at Heritage Auctions, beginning tomorrow, April 24th. Props from the canceled show include a self-driving car — complete with “manual gas throttle” and a “hidden compartment to operate vehicle.” (See the image gallery below.)

Also available are a table, some e-bikes, and assorted sous-vide bags of Dolores’ skin.

At least seven driverless Waymo vehicles blocked the on-ramp to 101 after being flummoxed by a construction site on Portrero Drive, according to video of the incident posted on Reddit. Waymo told TechCrunch the detour necessitated driving on the freeway, for which the vehicles were not approved without a human driver. To me, this is more evidence of the innate, robot-fighting powers of the humble orange cone.

The Google-spinoff has started charging for rides in its autonomous vehicles in Los Angeles, marking its third such city to do so (after Phoenix and San Francisco). The usual caveats apply about limited number of vehicles, waiting lists, and a service area that doesn’t cover the entire city. Will these driverless cars make a difference in a city notorious for its traffic?

After a report from Reuters said Tesla’s $25,000 Model 2 project got the ax, Elon Musk quickly scheduled a Tesla Robotaxi launch on August 8th. Other than the curiously selected date, this is a reminder that Elon’s made a lot of unfulfilled statements about robotaxis over the years (and “full self-driving,” and autonomy generally).

Bennett Tomlin checks them out in this video, which you have plenty of time to watch before August.