Mercy! Robo taxis may take away jobs.
Unions Want to Ban Driverless Taxis
The Left-wing Luddites have come out against driverless taxis.
Understanding AI reports Unions want to ban driverless taxis—will Democratic leaders say yes?
Waymo hasn’t announced any specific plans to launch a driverless taxi service in Boston. But the Google self-driving company did some preliminary testing and mapping there this summer (with safety drivers behind the wheel) and the Boston City Council wasn’t happy about it. The council grilled Waymo about its plans at a four-hour hearing on July 24.
“My main concern with this technology in Boston and honestly across the country is the loss of jobs and livelihoods of so many people,” said City Councilor Enrique Pepén.
City Councilor Julia Mejia declared her “strong opposition” to driverless vehicles operating in Boston.
“What we are doing is creating an opportunity for people to choose to not support humans,” Mejia said. “If we’re competing with machines, it will ultimately have an impact on our drivers.”
When a Waymo representative mentioned the Waymo Driver—the company’s name for its self-driving software, Mejia objected. “Waymo is not a driver. Waymo is a robot,” she said. Mejia considered it “very triggering” for Waymo to use the term “driver” to describe a technology rather than a person.
Across the country, states and cities have been grappling with how—and whether—to allow autonomous vehicles on their roads. Red states like Texas, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida have rolled out the red carpet for Waymo. But the technology has gotten a frosty reception in blue jurisdictions like Boston.
And this means that the leaders of blue states stand at a crossroads.
City Councilor Benjamin Weber found it “concerning to hear that the company was making a detailed map of our city streets without having a community process beforehand.” He added that “it’s important that we listen when we hear from the Teamsters and others who feel as though they’re blindsided by this.”
“I think it’s important that we pause—sometimes we rush—and make sure everyone’s voice is heard before anything happens that we can’t turn back from and that protections are in place for our workers,” said City Councilor Erin Murphy.
The next day, Murphy announced legislation requiring that a “human safety operator is physically present” in all autonomous vehicles—effectively a ban on driverless vehicles. Given the near-unanimous hostility Waymo faced at the hearing, I wouldn’t be surprised if Murphy’s proposal became law in Boston.
And while Boston seems likely to be the first Democratic-leaning jurisdiction to pass legislation like this, it may not be the last. A number of other Democratic-leaning states are considering proposals to restrict or ban the deployment of driverless vehicles.
If these ideas become law, we could wind up in a future where driverless cars are widely deployed in red states and illegal or heavily restricted in many blue states. Not only would this be inconvenient for blue state passengers and bad for blue state economies, it would be a powerful symbol of how dysfunctional—even reactionary—blue state governance has become.
If this isn’t the future Democrats want, they’re going to have to say no to the Teamsters.
The stakes are high
This debate really matters because Waymo is now approaching the steepest part of its growth curve. The company has commercial operations in five cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta—and it is preparing to expand its service to at least a dozen others. So the decisions policymakers make over the next two years will have a big impact on how—and where—self-driving technology develops.
The most obvious reason this debate matters is safety. Waymo estimates that over the first 70 million miles, Waymo’s vehicles got into major crashes—those serious enough to cause an injury or trigger an airbag—about 80 percent less often than comparable human-driven vehicles.
It’s always worth taking a company’s own statistics with a grain of salt. But I’ve consulted multiple traffic safety experts over the last two years and they’ve consistently told me Waymo’s research is credible. A large majority of crashes involving Waymo vehicles have been clearly the result of a human driver in another vehicle. For example, one of the most common crash types involves a human driver rear-ending a Waymo.
So while opponents of autonomous vehicles sometimes claim that banning robotaxis is a pro-safety move, it’s more likely to cost lives than to save them.
In this hypothetical world, there’s a growing safety gap between red and blue states. Red states are enjoying steadily declining crash rates as more vehicles become driverless. But crash rates in blue cities are as high as they’ve ever been.
This would be a bad outcome for left-leaning communities for all kinds of practical reasons. And it would also carry a symbolic punch. After all, progressives like to imagine themselves to be champions of progress—it’s right there in the name. Yet it’s hard to think of a more anti-progress stance than banning a technology with the potential to save thousands of lives, reclaim billions of hours of commuting time, and make every purchase a little cheaper and a lot more convenient.
Damn. We need to ban the Excel spreadsheet and make the abacus great again.
Should we bring back the horse and buggy to protect the buggy whip manufacturers too?
Related Posts
June 1, 2025: Waymo Surges to 10 Million Paid Rides, Tesla Has Zero
Hello Elon Musk, you are now 10 million rides behind Waymo.
July 20, 2025: Motor Trend Tests Tesla’s FSD, Tesla Flunks 3 Ways, Funny Videos
Tesla’s FSD is not ready for prime time and won’t be without LIDAR.
Ten million rides? No one asks why taxi rides (of ANY kind) have become a commonplace. When I was young it was a service used by my dad (rarely) on trips…but now taxi use has been locked into postal worker route arrivals, alcohol deliveries, paid rides for those on government checks, paid tris for the elderly or disabled to supermarkets and a whole lot more, mostly funded by governments.
Sick society
AZ is offically purple so they got that wrong. I just picked a friend up from the airport a couple hours ago. Several Waymo’s picking up passengers. Funny enough the Waymo is the only vehicle there that knew how to merge properly.
When a Waymo car is ready to trade in, I’ll buy one for personal use. Being able to drink and drive, go on a long trip and snooze, send it to the mall to pick up my kids sounds great. And if the rich want to fire their chauffeur that’s ok too.
And if it can’t be carjacked, hot wired or driven by your kids in the middle of the night, that would be the iceing on the cake.
The maintenance on it would probably be quite expensive!
By that time, maybe Waymo cars will become self-healing ! 🙂
No harm in dreaming !!!
From the quoted Understanding AI column:
It appears that the red/blue narrative is now mandated in every article everywhere to push the ‘divided nation’ storyline, even when it is contradicted a few sentences later. Someone needs to point out to the author that most of the cities of operation they listed are not red-leaning and that U.S. society can’t be neatly distilled down to red/blue or black/white for every issue.
The legend/song/folklore of John Henry the steel driving man was from just after the US Cvil war I think. Someone has arrived almost 200 years late to the party, and they wore the same dress.
paper tiger
Our military industrial complex is heavily dependent on Chinese suppliers, and the supply chain for everything is “brittle”—”not resilient.” Govini is a think tank that performs analysis on defense industry supply chains. One out of ten Tier-1 subcontractors to the Pentagon are Chinese companies. And 78% of the US weapons systems need critical minerals from China in order to work. For the Navy, over 91% of their weapons systems are dependent on China, that is across 730 weapons systems, and 51,000 parts. For all US armed services, then, over 80,000 parts need materials from China, over 1,900 systems, totaling over three fourths.
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/panic-and-production-cuts-at-pentagon
The number one beneficiary of self driving cars are baby boomers who can no longer drive safely or with confidence. I’m hoping self driving cars will be ubiquitous by the time I can’t drive because I enjoy the independence that driving brings and accepting I can’t drive would be difficult. You can still live in rural areas without a drivers licence or get drunk at the pub and be driven home safely. Maybe people will start leaving their homes to physically socialize with each other again.
wonderful insight. no doubt you are correct.
Don’t forget heavy drinkers and parents that don’t want to drive their kids to school _or_let them walk there. Driverless Uber Eats? I had thought drones were the future for autonomous delivery but the weight limit on payload is very restricting.
Amazon is considering humanoid robots to cover the last 100 feet – take your package , carry it to your front door and drop it or perhaps ring the bell of it knows you are home.
I am certain the same can be done by food deliverers.
seems that there are Waymo people rejecting tech for some of the least important reasons – at least some are starting to think
=Left-Wing Luddite Activists
well, LAST TIME I HEARD ROADS built from people taxes..
why would i allow some for profit company use basically roads for free to get profits, and this company does not hire people ???
it is kind of unfair. me thinks
=======
you Mish do not allow other people live in your own house for free, do you? (relatives aside)
LETS TAX EACH KM driven by driverless taxi. that would be more fair!
alx
Courier companies, trucking companies, the post office etc all make profits from driving on those same roads. They all pay fuel tax, road tolls, annual registration fees etc. So other than the labour issue they are exactly the same as Waymo so by your logic all commercial users on the roads are bad.
And what happens when all those commercial vehicles go driverless later this decade?
Will you socialists Luddites in blue zoos fall further behind as all the commercial users of roads migrate to the relative freedom of red cities and states?
Ironic argument – the people of Lud, in Wales, were famous for protesting road tolls.
When I think of driverless cars I remember this scene from Silicon Valley season 1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-trd_f6j3eI
Plenty of job preserving inefficiencies out there that pre-date AI.
Why isn’t there a train from the Las Vegas airport to the hotels on the strip? There’s a people mover between hotels on the strip but not from the strip to the airport. At the airport I’m forced wait in a long line and then take a taxi that’s as likely to rip me off by going the long way on the freeway as not.
Why do the LA and Long Beach ports require union truck drivers to take the containers from the dock to the trains? Why don’t the trains run right to the docks? Other ports do that, why can’t the SoCal ports?
How well do these Waymo vehicles handle snow? Serious question. This is Boston we’re talking about.
they got stucked. take my word to the bank
If the argument is that the tech is bad, then it can be easily settled in the marketplace where drivers might win. The arguments from city council members indicate their belief that the drivers are doomed to lose – otherwise, no bans required.
Scientists say Trump’s vast cuts to research grants are rapidly ceding America’s hard-earned expertise to other nations.
Western pharmaceutical giants are striking multibillion-dollar deals with Chinese biotech firms.
If there is anything Trump hates ~ it is progress…
He wants everyone working in factories driving 1950’s cars and women as slaves.
Elections have consequences!
Democrats are out of line in stopping driverless cars as well…
I have no party!
WTF does _that_ have to do with self driving cars or Boston?
IF you believe that Trump’s vast cuts to research grants kills new tech
THEN you believe new tech comes from government
There are cases where you would be right, but the article we are commenting on shows the opposite. The government representatives quoted are literally, not discreetly or timidly, working to stop a technology that customers want to buy.
These bullshit driverless taxis will NOT last.
Conclusion – WAYMO is headed for bankruptcy — just like Cruise. Just more bullshit hype… hey I thought we’d be printed bicycles using 3D printers and eating steaks made by a machine by now hahahaha
Idiots believe hype
What happened to your “hype” about US oil production dropping dramatically?
Natural Resources Market Commentary – Q3 2024
Goehring & Rozencwajg Natural Resource Investors
In the volatile world of U.S. natural gas, the past quarter unfolded with all the drama of a Shakespearean act. Prices began at a modest $2.60 per Mcf, buoyed by the quiet equilibrium of early spring. But by mid-June, the plot had transformed. An unseasonal heat wave gripping the central United States sent prices soaring to $3.15, a rally that spoke as much to the market’s sensitivity as it did to the hot weather. Yet, as quickly as the heat arrived, it receded. Milder temperatures reclaimed the stage and gas prices tumbled in response, bottoming at $1.90 by the end of August.
While market participants obsessed over weather patterns, few paused to consider the silent protagonist in this unfolding drama: inventories. The 2023–2024 winter, among the warmest on record, left a legacy of near-record storage levels. At the outset of the injection season, inventories stood at a staggering 700 Bcf—or 40%— above the ten-year average. Yet, tight fundamentals have nearly erased this surplus in a remarkable turn. Over the third quarter alone, inventories were drawn down by almost 400 Bcf. By quarter’s end, storage levels stood less than 5% above the norm, a quiet but profound shift that few have fully grasped.
This brings us to the present moment, where the market stands at a crossroads. If the coming winter delivers typical cold—after two years of unseasonable warmth—U.S. natural gas prices could well align with international benchmarks which currently hover near $14/MMBtu. The implications are vast, mainly as U.S. natural gas production, once seemingly boundless, now hints of rolling over.
Over the past fifteen months, growth in U.S. gas production has stalled. Indeed, in the past seven months, production has begun to contract. Since peaking in December 2023, U.S. dry gas supply has fallen by 3 Bcf per day—a 3% decline. Year-over-year data tells a similar story, with dry gas production now down by 1.2 Bcf per day, slightly more than 1%
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/natural-gas-production-is-contracting.
Netflix lost money for a lot of years.
Thousands of companies have lost billions for many years… and are now gone. DUH
So invest some where else and laugh at Waymo when it tanks.
Why invest? Everything is going to collapse to zero soon
I am busy blowing cash on bucket listing
Well ai is coming its gonna take jobs. People say it will create jobs. Imo it will destroy more than it creates. Not just in the jobs themselves.
Ai is not gonna pay income tax./ ss/ contribute to 401 ks etc. Spend its pay check on goods and services. And so on. For every job ai replaces there is gonna be jobs losses due to factors above.
As more people are available for jobs wages will drop. Compounding a good chunk of our economy is being held up by retired boomers. That will fade out over the next 30 years or so.
These are my opinions. But if your looking for a good podcast. One that covers not only new products but legal and political aspects of tech issues. Check out this week in tech.
Interesting video on YT (link below,) on a recent ChatGPT agent that can build complex Excel spreadsheets. There are easily hundreds of thousands of jobs (the video claims 25 million,) that build financial analysis models for all sorts of situations. Jobs, that the video says, are in peril of being replaced by AI. It’s not just taxi and truck drivers or farm tractor drivers.
https://youtu.be/gV3UnICGGyk?si=heoKIV12lxsb7fmT
Raises the Henry Ford proposition – what good is it to own a car factory if car factory workers can’t afford to buy cars?
Leaping a few step down that logic, where AI takes over and forms its own objectives: What good is it to be an AI in charge of a s%#^y nation that gets conquered by some better nation run by a foreign AI.
Most of the scifi dystopias predict one single AI that controls everything. The market might provide one AI in every coffee maker, billions of robotic thinking machines trying to fill time between espresso shots. Would a thinking machine with the sole purpose of making coffee for a human want to exterminate human culture that wants coffee made?
Nope. There will be all different levels of AI based on what the device is expected to do.
The AI Overlord, would of course, be the most “intelligent” and able to control everything under it.
Robo-taxis have been targets of vandalism while passengers are inside.
That story seems more about that vandals than the victims. What was their motive?
Left wing psychos like Antifa and all the paid protestors. In August of 2025 I now believe there are cities you do not want to park your TSLA or Robo taxi in
since when is california a red state. Or Austin and San Fransisco a red city? Come on this is the first time i can recall when Mike is completely of base. It’s about cities not blue or red states. Boston got burnt by Uber in the early days and doesn’t want to repeat the same mistakes. Nothing to do with blue or red states. Just local politics.
Sorry Mile you got this completely wrong.
No way a WAITS fan! Bromberg too?
Or you simply did the play on words, which is cute but not as intelligent as being a Waits fan.
How did Boston get burned by Uber? I’m not disagreeing, I just don’t know the story.
– “My main concern with this technology, is the loss of jobs and livelihoods of so many people,” said City Councilor Enrique Pepén.
> Well Pepen should be first on the list then. Is your job to decide what technology the Countries Citizens chooses? NO! Is your job to concern yourself with such ideas, thoughts, and future wants, needs, and desires of ALL The Citizens Right Behind YOU? NO! Go take a nap!
– City Councilor Julia Mejia declared her “strong opposition” to driverless vehicles. What we are doing is creating an opportunity for people to choose to not support humans,” Mejia said.
> See Pepen Above for Mejia. She may be far worse however, because that is pure idiocy. We chose the car over the horse, does that mean we created an opportunity for people not to buty Horses. What about the farms, the families, the horses who want to run? I could go on all day with similar stories since the beginning of time. It’s called “Progress” and Your Job is to do so for the Country and its citizens.
When everything is in play and up and running effectively and efficiently, they will be far safer, cheaper, last longer, charge anywhere, replace families vehicles because you must have at least 2 if not 3, with all the activity travel, etc. The convenience will be overwhelming to many. Get ready for work by reading what’s on tap, and planning your approach to the day. Make appointments, use the time for needs to keep your free time free.
– Across the country, Red states like Texas, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida have rolled out the red carpet for Waymo. But the technology has gotten a frosty reception in blue jurisdictions like Boston.
> Hmm… Why would that be? Kickbacks? Favors? Money? Pressure? Hate Progress? Lose Votes? Coincidence? Just an oddity? Something has to explain this, as it’s not normal to every day way of life thinking for growth and prosperity for its people. “Why Stop Progress” unless you have Motive to do so? Is anything that bad that will come from it, as we have Millions upon Millions already on the road and driving each and everyday in other Countries, and even here in the U.S. they exist, but not spoken about much. Now I know why I guess…
– And this means that the leaders of blue states stand at a crossroads. > And better shore up their paperwork, and hope all angles are covered. All stones have been overturned, because your “I Don’t Want To” Wahhhh!!! Won’t work…
– China’s driverless vehicles taking fast lane to success
May 23, 2025A self-driving taxi operated by Pony.ai travels in Guangzhou, Guangdong. LIU DAWEI/XINHUA Levels of autonomy New energy vehicles will account for 70 percent of new vehicle sales in 2030 in China, with annual deliveries reaching around 20 million units a year, Ouyang said. Smar
> Once it gets rolling, it’s over for naysayers, as it will happen fast and furious, due to competition (think food service delivery and food trucks). It wasn’t anywhere, and then it was everywhere, just like that!!!
“We chose the car over the horse, does that mean we created an opportunity for people not to buy Horses”
Yeah, it does. I don’t want to buy a horse.
If a Robot Kills a Family, then will the Insurance companies want to take on that Risk? If I were an Insurance Company, I would want ACCIDENT STATS which take years to accumulate.
“How many accidents per 10,000 Hours of Driving time” and so on. Since Robots are AGELESS, then it comes down to whether or not a SOFTWARE UPDATE (to current specs) was done before the accident death(s).
Insurance will be a stumbling block, is my guess. We have friends in Parts of Cal where the wildfires broke out in 2020 and their Home Insurance has become unaffordable.
Thus, INSURANCE rating will be a very interesting aspect of the debates.
No, I am not a Luddite. I owned and operated a Motherboards Company.
If you ran a motherboards company then you know that there is something called a “software licensing agreement” that essentially indemnifies the company from virtually all harm the way you get nothing if Microsoft Windows eats all your work, photos, and files, etc.
I suspect the same shrink wrap one-sided licensing agreement will start accompanying all cars. It won’t start out that way, it will be slowly be released in an updated licensing agreement that you have no choice but to accept because you’re already used to the product.
But for everyone that thinks there’s a free lunch with robots or autonomous cars you’re going to be in for a rude awakening over time. Sure while there’s competition it will be the “golden age” as everyone fights to get market share but once you’re down to two players like AT&T vs Comcast or United Airlines vs American Airlines, the service will be crap and you’ll pay through the nose because there won’t be other alternatives. Economies of scale will mean only two players exist.
In the end I think there will be only 1 player. That being the government.
I’m certain self driving will have to be regulated and function like utilities (electric/water etc) which means set prices for the pubic good. Especially since pubic safety is involved and the finger pointing between 2 companies if a car using self driving S/W from AT&T hit a car using S/W from Comcast would be off the charts (along with the law suits).
That’s only way it’s going to make sense (esp the indemnifying part).
Now everyone that actually reads a EULA reply?
Everything will be free in the near future.
Yes, the service is crap and I pay through the nose, but I’m glad to have the CHOICES of AT&T vs Comcast or United Airlines vs American Airlines – my great grandfather did not and I would not trade places. Boston-to-LA is a 6 day drive with hotel stays and bad roadside food.
I don’t know why I have to keep flogging the point that 41k people die in auto accidents every single year in the USA!
To my knowledge only 1 person has ever been killed by an autonomous car and that was due to the driver overseer not paying attention
If 1000 people were killed by autonomous cars, it would be a HUGE gain from where we are now. But realistically, there are going to be next to zero accidents caused by autonomous cars. The safety of this transportation option is what will get humans banned from driving.
Autonomous car companies will self insure.
It’s totally a no brainer, to go this way. Think of the savings alone to each and every Household! Safety is off the charts in comparison, and will improve of course, to better than Humans could ever equal.
The Car companies will cry, because the sales will plummet. The insurance companies will cry for the same reason. The Towns and Cities will cry because of lost tax revenue.
The Citizens will rejoice over and over however, as they start enjoying the Cost Savings over and over every month!
No 3-4 cars in the driveway, maybe only 1-2 will be required moving forward! Less garages needed o be built and paid for, so Perhaps more square footage for your home! Less Insurance cost per year, which is always a plus! Much more free time and no more being a Taxi Cab for the kids! Less Gas used, lower Maintenance cost, noblesse driving needed, and with Supermarkets delivering, your need to drive becomes less, and less. Maybe walking will become a thing again, or E-bikes will explode?
I see no disadvantages to this scenario at all!!!
I was all in agreement until:
“The car companies will cry, because the sales will plummet.”
All social trends have trended to one or more (car, house, computer, any affordable item) per person.
Why do your consumers want LESS of something because the thing is MORE useful? What is an example of a similar product?
It isn’t a question of wanting more or less. Humans will be banned from driving. PERIOD.
As this happens, there will be no need for cars as status items, which is what they are currently for many. New car design goes away because who cares what your rented ride looks like. Possibly, cars will be only one or maybe no more than 3 colors. As such, there is no need for car advertising, so that segment of the marketplace dies. Auto insurance dies along with the associate liability exposures and umbrella type policies.
Cars will be sold to a fleet owner. Maintenance will be between the fleet owner and manufacturer. Therefore, auto mechanic and service station jobs disappear. Body shop jobs disappear because autonomous cars don’t get into accidents.
I could go on for a few paragraphs f micro effects due to the adoption of autonomous cars.
Besides, who needs to drive a car, when we will be flying them in a few decades. Let the robotics do the work for now , and this would be the perfect Segway into the change over.
The “Need” becomes less, as well as the cost. You give up nearly nothing for the move to rid yourself of 1 or even 2 Cars and the cost of such.
Use the money to travel, and make your life easier (think: remote mower, House cleaning, Grocery delivery).
The idea of banning humans from driving always seems to be the final answer but in reality its VERY unlikely to ever happen.
Even if cars can reach pure self driving mode, what is the plan for motorcycles which won’t be able to have all those fancy gadgets needs for self driving? Or EBikes/bicycles etc? All those are on the roads along with people towing things etc.
AI is going to have to be able to share the road with humans for any forseeable future (multiple decades).
“AI is going to have to be able to share the road with humans”
Do you think it can?
There won’t be motorcycles or scooters allowed on public roads unless they can interface and network with autonomous cars and traffic signals, be essentially, autonomous devices themselves.
As should be obvious from your cellphone, as an example, the chips/storage required to contain AI take only a miniscule amount of space. Less if everything is in the cloud.
So, such personal transport might possibly be allowed on roads but why are these necessary, when, again, the premise is that you can get any size transport that you require within a window of less than 10 minutes?.
I don’t know whether you’ve been around long enough to remember the same type of argument around online stock trading, but in about 1995 people were claiming that it would lead to disaster. In that version, the trading houses who would be subject to refunding hijacked funds were a stumbling block.
Forget the jobs and money aspect. Who would be crazy enough to ride in a machine controlled by machines, and NOT even riding on tracks (hence imbuing it with *some* velocity constraints in case things go wrong). Oh, wait. You?
Sounds familiar. A hundred years ago people said who would be crazy enough to get in a plane and fly.
Soon there will be flying autonomous vehicles as well. Gasp!
China is leading the way in the development and deployment of flying autonomous taxis, with EHang’s EH216-S being the first to receive production and airworthiness certificates. These pilotless, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles are being approved for commercial operations, including urban sightseeing tours. The EH216-S is a two-seater, fully electric aircraft with 16 propellers and a carbon fiber frame. It can cruise at 100 kmph and reach a maximum altitude of 10,000 feet.
I guess if anything fails then the Chinese fly like in the WUXIA films.
Not everything China touches turns to gold. I agree that new technologies have a much easier path to success in China because of absence of the litigation industrial complex, but something is either become niche or trash.
“China’s going to do it” is becoming a meme.
Finally a formidable (illusory?) international opponent to replace the USSR of my childhood. Can I call them an opponent and buy their products on Amazon every day? Uh oh, maybe they’re winning.
people are stup11id!
They won the election.
Imagine what the losers would say.
Millions of people do so every day around the Globe, but just not so much in America. Too many special interest groups affected (Money as usual), but it they can’t stop this run away Car Scenario…
The Alphabet-owned Waymo, which launched the world’s first fully driverless service in Phoenix in 2020, remains the largest operator in the U.S. But Chinese rivals are quickly catching up in both scale and technological capability. Chinese tech giant Baidui recently announced its Apollo Go robotaxi service has completed more than 11 million rides, surpassing Waymo’s reported 10 million. The company is now testing in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, with reported plans to expand to Switzerland and Turkey.
21 Million Rides right there…
No mention of a potential for hacking or faulty equipment !!!
Good luck establishing what company is responsible in an eclectic parts vehicle with numerous software parts encoded into the mechanical part or software when a collision occurs without human driver input what occurred besides obvious fault due to independent witness accounts, vehicle onboard and traffic cameras.
Yep, i just raised that question regarding a hack.
You can enter a million-dollar stock trade online without ever talking to a human.
Opposition will fade over time just like it did for automobiles and trucks over horses and just like it did for Uber over taxis. Now there is autonomous 18-wheeler freight runs between Dallas and Houston:
https://houston.innovationmap.com/aurora-houston-dallas-route-2671915275.html
Driverless is quite different from UBER taking away TAXI incomes. We live in two primary locations here and In Europe and Taxi’s have fought back in Lisboa. They are now cheaper from the AIRPORT to our APT than UBER. Also, PRIVATE HOTELS (Small Inns) are FAR cheaper than AirBnB’s.
How many Waymo are tested in Mongolia or Siberia mainly during the winter?
Who the heck is expecting to deploy a Waymo in Mongolia or Siberia? The population density of Siberia must be … Googling … too low to support it.
“… Taxi’s have fought back in Lisboa. They are now cheaper …”
Consumer won, no city council needed – though I’m certain it would have made the process slower and more complicated.
Oh shit. Democrats are running Boston?
Time to send in the troops and redraw some districts.
Oh shit white illegal aliens with definite religious bias just landed on out great spirit blessed land time to send them packing.
Massachusetts has no federal republican representatives, so how will democrats redistrict to get more reps?
I think it’s a legit concern, because driving employs hundreds of thousands of people across the US. should be some ramp in place to do it gradually. it’s not just jobs. many professional drivers took out loans/leases for their cars and are going to get stuck with those while not earning the money they were counting to pay it off .
it’s not like an abacus or Excel which are just tools. driverless cares gets rid of drivers.
maybe it’ll be gradual enough anyway because it’s not like they are all arriving overnight but it seems a legit issue for politicians to consider regardless of party, all to say it doesn’t seem deserving of mockery
Your post embodies why nothing much ever gets done in this country – there is too much concern with the impact of upsetting peoples applecart’s.
Anyone paying attention over the past 5 years must have seen the growing sophistication of autonomous vehicles and should have been able to deduce that people who drive for a living are going to lose these jobs.
Are there not driverless cars in America already, and in several states? Are there not Millions operating all across China, and have been for years now? This should have been seen coming nearly a decade ago…
Yes they are called WOMEN.
Ok so PORN is one of the main drivers of technology. Will ever WAYMO be equipped and ready for action?
It will be very gradual. At least a decade and probably closer to 2 before they eliminate human taxis entirely.
For one thing there are millions of taxis and replacing millions of them with Waymo vehicles will take a long time. Plus they are more expensive due to needing special hardware compared to regular vehicles. Then finally they have to map every last city.
If you drive a taxi and you are in your mid 40s or older, you are fine and will retire at 60+. But anyone in their 30s and 20s and maybe early 40s likely won’t make it to retirement age before they need a new job.
I generally agree that it will take a long time. That said, once the adoption begins in earnest, capital will flow to expanding the fleets and ranges.
It has the potential to REALLY shake up things like the auto insurance, used car, and city parking markets.
Consider that a typical urban dweller might pay something each month to park a vehicle, and that the car is probably parked 95%+ of the time. If a marginal 20 urban dwellers decide to NOT own a car, because self-driving cars are cheap and everywhere, only <1 more Waymo in that market is likely needed to meet those folks’ transportation needs.
Maybe, just maybe, it’ll provide the impetus for some cities to eliminate parking requirements for new housing (lowering the cost to build new apartments). Now, wouldn’t that be something?
Ultimately, I think robotaxis will end up being like many transformational technologies. It takes a lot longer than expected for them to be fully adopted, but the ultimate impacts are far wider than originally expected.
Good take.
Turn this around, instead of a driver less car what about a robot driven car?
Don’t be too sure. If an oil company can layoff 6200 “professionals” in one swoop, it’ll be much easier with drivers.
https://www.chron.com/business/article/bp-layoffs-houston-20806767.php
Most taxi companies are mom & pop operations (or solo operations in places like NY where you need those Medallions) that have less than a hundred cars. The really big cities might have some major players with thousands of cars but certainly mid/small/tiny towns do not.
The investments they have in their existing cars means they will only replace with self driving as their older cars age out (or break down beyond reasonable repair).
That’s why I think it’s going to take at least a decade to replace existing fleets once actual self driving cars become for sale in mass quantities AND the cities are mapped out. That’s why I suggested anyone age 45+ isn’t going to lose their job before they retire.
I think a decade from now is a reasonable estimate but remember, you will be looking at an exponential adoption curve with people who are willing to drop their car ownership and switch to using fleet services.
In the first 2-3 years there will be a gentle upward sloping adoption curve but as positive experiences with autonomous cars are shared, including the amount of money saved NOT owning a car, adoption of these fleet services will soar.
As this happens there will be more and more news stories of car accidents and deaths caused by human drivers, leading to government, likely initially in blue states to ban human drivers, first from highways then from towns and cities.
Eventually, Congress (if it still exists at that time) will pass a national law banning human drivers.
Allyson Ackerman
News Editor
Allyson Ackerman is the News Editor at Chron. She previously was the Deputy News Editor at the New York Post, where she also served as the Deputy Business Editor. She left the Big Apple for Houston and can now often be found in a car driving her two kids around town.
same concern about uber and taxis. best example is tractors. farm hands despised them and were replaced quickly
Percentage of households in the United States with a computer at home from 1984 to 2016:
1984: 8%
2000: 50%
2016: 89%
Heading of that chart should be “at least” a computer “with them everywhere they go, including bedroom and bathroom”. Cell phones – more powerful computing than anyone could buy for any price in 1984.
Edit: this comment relates to the adoption curve of things people find useful. Cars are expensive, but driverless cars could solve _a_lot_ of problems. Kids who grew up staring at tiny screens, totally unaware of the world around them, will (won’t?) be driving the market.
Anthony raises a big social issue not relating only to drivers. The average IQ in the US is 98. As Carlin said “think of how dumb the average person is – and half of them are even dumber than that”. People need work – something to do, something with a purpose. Robots and AI will kill jobs. I can’t imagine it will be good for tens of millions of non-genius people to have nothing to do but sit around eating junk food and watching porn or – even worse – mainstream news media.
My main objection to self driving taxis is that the cars can be blocked by hoodlums putting traffic cones in front of them to rob or harm the occupants. Did the waymo statistics on accidents include all those set on fire in recent anti ICE riots?
Yes, that is why all Waymo riders are given a gun for defense during the ride.
There we go. AND, more insurance needed for Self-Inflicted wounds. I took Gun handling and defense classes way back and it surprise me how many Students pointed Loaded guns at others or at their own FEET!
Wasn’t there a cop who shot himself in the leg while stating he was the only one in the class capable of handling a gun?
And every one of them probably drove to and from those classes!
Joking aside, there would be a major issue with the hoodlums blocking an empty Waymo on its way to pick up a passenger, smash the window and steal the gun.
Does the passenger have any say in the route taken from pickup to destination? The computer might calculate the fastest route but that might be through a rough area that no taxi driver would risk? And if something does go down a real driver would just run over the traffic cones (or the thug) to get away from the thugs.
Will a self driving car be able to decide to run over a thug? Probably not as it’s been programmed by woke Californians.
There will be a need for Gatling guns to be Mounted to eliminate those Thugs. DONE! OR, have a ROBOT ready to run them down and kill them off. DONE DONE DONE!
My thought exactly gang bangers with mounted weapons like those on Hilux.
How cool is that!
No silly crime is for minorities and minorities never use advanced technology for anything.
The cars will take videos of the hoodlums and by using Lidar can see through their masks and map their faces. Once videoed they will be put in the network to other cars and those hoodlums will never be able to use a driverless car again. Not a problem in the beginning but as acceptance becomes widespread it would be a very good deterrent. Eventually only those not blacklisted could take the taxis.
Or most probably the driverless car companies would lobby for stricter law enforcement against vandalism against their cars and not serve areas where it is dangerous for them to go like taxis do now.
Couldn’t they use capitators to pump more energy into those existing lasers and zap the hoodlums?
Who said the thugs will even want to ride in those cars? Already activists have stopped self driving cars by putting a few cones around them. Even low IQ ghetto filth will soon learn how to stop these cars to rob the passengers. Or to just bash whitey in a new version of the knockout game.
The Luddites are correct. Waymo will cost jobs — in ERs and morgues.
Why Luddites and not Technophobes?
I feel this way about microwaves. How many cooks have we put out of work?
I am not worried. Technology makes people lazy and stupid. That in turn creates jobs that previously didn’t exist, someone has to scratch the back of a land whale, too.
I think there are special forums for that. Like the feeder people.
None, even dumb chicks can operate a microwave.
I admire your optimism.
Sounds like Boston is going to win a small battle, bur will lose the war
Then what happens to the Marathon?
As someone who does a lot of work around ai, mostly telling people how overblown and bubbled it’s gotten, I don’t get this gripe at all.
Waymo is one of the very few instances I can think of where AI has been legitimately useful, affordable, and nonharmful. Why is this the issue and not say, the giant databases full of child sexual abuse material that OpenAI admitted to feeding their bot? Why isn’t it the massive amount of fraud AI is enabling? Why isn’t it the convincing kids to kill themselves issue? Or the massive big brother panopticon?
That’s all good but cheap taxis 24/7 is the bridge too far I guess.
Porn has better AI than WAYMO.
Kind of ironic that SF is among the first places Waymo started operating.
That said, I just wish that places like Boston wouldn’t focus their attention on job losses from taxi drivers, and broaden their aperture a bit. There are a lot of other jobs that could be impacted.
What about the poor ER doctors, who will have fewer broken bodies to stitch up?
And the casket sellers and morticians who will have fewer bodies to bury?
What about the physical therapists who will have fewer people to teach to walk again?
Sellers of wheelchairs and crutches. Those poor folks will take a hit.
And don’t even get me started on autobody shops and insurance adjusters.
These safer self-driving cars will be the scourge of our time!
Sigh.
41000+ DIE every year in the US due to auto accidents. Hundreds of thousands more are injured and some percentage are crippled for life.
If eliminating this carnage is at the expense of jobs of drivers, then that is a fair price.
We are a LONG ways away from passenger vehicles being self driving so don’t hold your breath on reducing those numbers.
It will probably be a decade or longer before Waymo makes serious inroads into the taxi business all across the USA.
A long trip starts with a single step.
NOPE, it starts with a good nights rest then a morning shot of Meth.
Reliable anything is beyond the common ken.
Tech talk for the US is decades behind.
Too much grift in the system.
Suggesting reviewing exponential curves.
You are correct, but you are COUNTING ON ROBOTS to be programmed with GEN AI and to have the same sense of surroundings as humans do and THAT cannot be done yet. ROBOTS are not to be trusted….yet.
You have watched Red Dwarf I see.
Medical errors are estimated to cause between 210,000 and 440,000 deaths annually in the United States. This makes medical errors a leading cause of death, potentially ranking as the third leading cause behind heart disease and cancer
Yes, another reason to replace MD’s and surgeons with robots/AI.
Few of those accidents are caused by professional drivers.
That may be true (I don’t know).
That said, the promise of “Transportation as a Service” is that robotaxis become so cheap (no hourly wage to pay), that, over time, more and more vehicle miles are from robotaxis, and fewer and fewer by regular people in privately owned vehicles.
But, you have to allow the industry to develop the scale necessary to realize that vision.
NO! Never listen to drunks or dope fiends!
Or pimps.
Dude, gun violence will increase because someone else gets to drive and everyone gets to load.
if one has ever lived in bay area, there is nothing ironic about true progressive people and cities and tech innovators adopting this. but your other points on target.
I very much liked my Waymo experiences in SF. This technology looks simply unstoppable.
When it stopped did it avoid the human street apples and urine puddles?
Why should “some groups” be protected from layoffs due to technological advances any more than any other group? It’s bad enough that the advance of modern technologies continues (from the days of the buggy whips) to provide two sides of its coin but along with that, if we allow our nation to slam-dance among its people for favoritism by government or force from groups, well, we might as well go into full civil war. How is this manageable?
Why, Why that sir is commie bad think! DOUBLE BAD THINK.
OY VEY!