Robotaxis & self-driving cars

Robotaxi regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission, after hours of testimony from supporters and opponents, voted on Thursday to allow GM’s Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo to charge riders for driverless robotaxi service, day and night, anywhere in San Francisco, with no cap on fleet sizes. They can now commence full commercialization of robotaxis in San Francisco.

We’ve been seeing them everywhere in San Francisco: Fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) from Cruise and Waymo with no driver and one or two people in the back, and vehicles with no one in them at all. They’re generally well-behaved. They smoothly roll up to a stop sign, come to a complete stop, stay there for a couple of seconds, and then softly accelerate away. They stop when the light turns yellow and don’t floor the accelerator to get through the intersection on dark-yellow or whatever. And they don’t do donuts in intersections.

After a fatality or two, non-computerized cars and pedestrians will be banned from the streets.

After a crash or two, the PUC will order a 35-mph speed limit on them.

And that will be the only way to travel. IF the government LETS you.

Enjoy your AI Utopia, idiots.

Related:

Traffic lights could change in the era of smart vehicles​

They have a test fleet in downtown Miami and they suck. The cars are constantly stopping for no reason creating problems for human drivers.

nickndfl said:

They have a test fleet in downtown Miami and they suck. The cars are constantly stopping for no reason creating problems for human drivers.

Click to expand...

Yup.

Ban human-operated cars and trucks. And bicycles.

And FORCE the sheeple INTO these hellscape robocarriages.

Nearly everywhere on earth, when you’re stuck in traffic, you’re still surrounded by the usual sea of heads attached to shoulders attached to arms attached to steering wheels. But in a tiny handful of places—in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Wuhan, China—you can find yourself flanked by taxis with no one in the drivers’ seats, picking up passengers, unsupervised by any human. And if you live in one of those cities, the sight probably doesn’t even prompt a double-take anymore. It’s like the future is suspended between those who’ve never encountered it—and those who are already a little blind to it.

Self-Driving Cars Are Having a Moment. You Just Have to Be in the Right Place​

When I mention self-driving cars to someone outside the tech bubble that is the San Francisco Bay Area, they'll often ask, "Do you really think they'll become a reality?" To which I respond, "They already are."

Waymo, for instance, operates a 24/7 robotaxi operation in parts of the Bay Area, as well as a handful of other cities. The autonomous vehicles are practically everywhere you look here, provoking slack-jawed tourists to pull out their phones and take videos. Personally, hailing a robotaxi to run errands or meet up with friends has become so routine that I no longer bat an eye.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/new...S&cvid=8cd99247130a42cb8cf7f17861225491&ei=41

Edited out the old post due to it being behind a "sigh in" site and replaced it with a normal vid. Exactly the same.

Waymo Hitting Delivery Robot in Los Angeles​

Original video posted here: / food_delivery_robot_hit_by_waymo

When the gov comes after me cos I’m no longer considered safe to drive and takes my car away , I am hoping that I can buy an autonomous car so I can continue to live out in the sticks as independently as possible.
I kinda like the idea of being dropped off and ambling downstream to be picked up after a generally downhill walk …..

I guess we need a few more years for the tech to be fully worked out and I’m still wondering how they will resolve who goes back when vehicles meet in single track country lanes and lines build up, with some vehicles towing trailers

Just because we (they!) CAN do something, doesn't mean we SHOULD.

Food delivery robots are a cute idea, but not practical. Not the least of which is, ACCOUNTABILITY. Someone grabs the robot, maybe for laughs, and beats open its chamber hot-box to take what's in it...it's a loss to Gee-Whiz Burgers. They're out an order; a customer; an expensive motorized toy. Lots of paperwork and meeting with loss-prevention types. A courier, on the other hand, first, is not going to be such an idiot-magnet; and if he IS accousted, he can REPORT what happened.

If a customer complains, Boss can turn on him and either train him in his errors, or fire him.

Self-driving cars: The ideal thing for the autistic spawn of helicopter parents, who is afraid of people, unable to multitask, as in drive a car in traffic; who cannot hold a job that pays well enough to own a car and who is too socially inept to even hail a taxi. The city bus is a terror for him; but computers are the source of his pleasures (OnlyFans and PornHub). So, SURE...let the computer drive him. He can sit in the back, thumb in mouth, in palpable fear with waves of brain-stem rage.

I compare that to when us mid-late Baby Boomers were kids. We couldn't WAIT to hit the road. I was on the road, with a bicycle, from age 5. Rupp mini-bikes were the rage when I was around ten; and Honda made its Trail 70, which had a real transmission. A friend had one, bought used. It could do 50 MPH!

Then, the trials and travails of Driver Ed, and the discovery that it would COST - insurance - just to be allowed to drive. I didn't get a car until I got a full time job after high school, but several of my friends were faster at it. One friend of my older brother, got his first car - a 1965 Mustang - while in his senior year. His father loaned him the money because the Mustang was cheap. Times they do change.

No, I wouldn't want to join the Playpen Generation and be transported by self-driving cars. When I can no longer afford a car...if I have to move to where I can't walk to the grocery store, as I can right now...if that's the case, I'll travel Uber. Since I can't call a cab, anymore...here, as well as in my sort-of-hometown Cleveland, Uber killed off Yellow Cab and similar big taxicab companies.