Ride-sharing companies are embracing Waymo’s autonomous vehicles. Where’s Tesla?
Waymo’s 2024 Year in Review
Please consider That’s a Wrap! Waymo’s 2024 Year in Review
2024 has been a year of incredible growth, connection, and learning for Waymo.We couldn’t be more grateful for our riders and the trust they’ve placed in us to serve over 150,000 trips every week. To all those who’ve been with us from day one in Phoenix to our daily riders in San Francisco, trendsetters in Los Angeles, and early riders in Austin — thank you for coming on this journey with us.
We served over 4 million fully autonomous rides this year alone, bringing us to over 5 million rides total. With the Waymo Driver at the wheel, riders enjoyed over 1 million hours in their own trusted space to make the most of their time – working on the go, belting karaoke, or just sitting back to unwind. And with our all-electric fleet powered by renewable energy, Waymo riders helped avoid over 6 million kilograms of CO2 emissions.
To provide riders with more travel options, we expanded our service areas across all of our cities in 2024. We now serve nearly 500 square miles encompassing four major metropolitan areas to get people where they’re going safely. The most popular destinations in each city this year were Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, The Ferry Building in SF, and The Grove shopping center in LA.
With 2024 coming to a close, we excitedly look ahead to what the new year will bring. With Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles now fully open to the public, the opportunity to provide safe and sustainable transportation for more riders has never been greater. We’re hard at work preparing to commercially launch in Austin and Atlanta on the Uber app next year, and continue to lay the groundwork for a Miami launch with fleet partner Moove in 2026. We’re also excited about our first international road trip to Tokyo next year in partnership with Nihon Kotsu and GO.
Robotaxi Revolution
The Wall Street Journal comments How Uber and Lyft Are Gearing Up for the Robotaxi Revolution
Uber Technologies UBER and Lyft LYFT gave up on big plans to develop their own driverless taxis years ago. Now, they are revamping their businesses to accommodate competitors who may have figured it out.
The ride-hailing leaders are preparing to bring driverless taxis to your door with new app features that allow customers to use their phones to open trunks and honk horns. They are building infrastructure to maintain the high-tech taxis and training human support staff to handle riders without drivers.
Both companies will have driverless cars—from Alphabet’s GOOGL Waymo and others—on their apps this year. In the coming months, riders in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta will be able to hail a Waymo through the Uber app. Lyft plans to offer May Mobility’s driverless taxis in Atlanta.
Uber and Lyft have agreed to maintain these driverless fleets. They are finding locations to store the cars, equipping them with chargers and high-speed internet, and training workers to maintain the cameras, lidar and other gadgets that driverless vehicles depend on.
Uber struck a deal with Waymo that will allow customers in Austin and Atlanta to hail the company’s driverless taxis only through the Uber app, a move that will prevent the driverless carmaker from taking market share in those cities. Waymo will continue to operate its own app in other cities.
In August, Waymos picked up close to 500,000 passengers in California, up from fewer than 20,000 a year earlier.
Consumer receipts analyzed by YipitData within Waymo’s operating zone in San Francisco found that the company had taken a 22% share in November. Lyft’s share in the area fell to 22% the same month, from 34% in August 2023. Uber’s share in the area slipped 10 percentage points to 55% over the same period.
How Much Better Is Waymo than Tesla at Self Driving?
That’s the question I asked Grok, Musk’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) application.
Grok responded …
The comparison between Waymo and Tesla’s self-driving technologies involves several nuanced aspects, including their approaches, capabilities, and operational metrics. Here’s a detailed look at how they differ:
Technology and Approach:
- Waymo uses a combination of sensors including lidar, radar, and cameras, which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the environment. This multi-sensor approach enables Waymo vehicles to operate driverlessly in specific, pre-mapped areas. Waymo’s technology is known for its reliability in complex urban environments where it has high-definition maps and can leverage remote operators for support if needed.
- Tesla, on the other hand, primarily relies on camera-based vision technology with no lidar, focusing on a vision-only approach for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. This approach aims at scalability and lower hardware costs but has been criticized for inconsistent performance in varied scenarios and weather conditions.
Performance Metrics:
- Waymo has demonstrated a higher level of autonomy in real-world operations, with vehicles going thousands of miles without human intervention in geofenced areas. Their system has been noted for fewer disengagements (when a human driver must take control), with statistics showing Waymo vehicles traveling significantly between interventions compared to Tesla’s FSD.
- Tesla’s FSD is still considered a level 2 autonomy system, requiring constant driver supervision. While there are reports of Tesla FSD handling long drives with fewer interventions, these are under supervised conditions and not fully autonomous like Waymo’s operations. Tesla’s system has faced scrutiny for unexpected disengagements and safety concerns.
Scalability and Market Strategy:
- Waymo currently operates in limited geographic areas but with plans to expand. Their service model is focused on robotaxi services, initially in select cities, which might not scale as quickly as Tesla’s approach but aims for high reliability within those areas.
- Tesla touts the advantage of scaling its technology across its entire fleet of vehicles, which number in the millions, allowing for vast data collection for improving AI. However, this comes with the caveat that Tesla’s system is not yet capable of full driverless operation without supervision, unlike Waymo’s driverless taxis.
- Public Perception and User Experience:
- Posts and discussions on platforms like X suggest a contrast in user experience. Some users praise Waymo for its smooth, confident driving in urban settings, while others critique Tesla’s FSD for not matching this level of autonomy or smoothness, though Tesla’s system is noted for its potential scalability and broader application.
In summary, Waymo currently outperforms Tesla in terms of actual driverless capability within its operational areas due to its use of advanced sensor technology and strategic deployment. However, Tesla’s approach might lead to broader market penetration and potentially lower costs if they can solve the reliability and safety issues associated with their vision-only system. The “better” aspect thus depends on the context: for immediate, reliable driverless service in specific areas, Waymo leads; for widespread potential and cost-effectiveness, Tesla holds promise but has significant ground to cover.
I consider that a surprisingly good answer, and it came in seconds. I especially like the following paragraph (emphasis added):
Grok: “Waymo uses a combination of sensors including lidar, radar, and cameras, which allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the environment.”
Grok: “Tesla’s FSD is still considered a level 2 autonomy system, requiring constant driver supervision. While there are reports of Tesla FSD handling long drives with fewer interventions, these are under supervised conditions and not fully autonomous like Waymo’s operations. Tesla’s system has faced scrutiny for unexpected disengagements and safety concerns.”
Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” is a comparative joke because it is not self driving at all. A driver must be present. Waymo is level 4 autonomy. Despite decades of promises Tesla is level 2.
Musk maintains that he can train cars by accumulating data so that they can go anywhere. That will not hold up in adverse conditions.
Also, Waymo is undoubtedly gathering test data from millions of actual drives vs Tesla’s big fat zero.
Perhaps Musk will buy enough regulatory favors to give it a go. But there is more to robotaxis than just the car.
Musk cut corners to build cars cheaper. That ‘s great for cheap mass production but it isn’t great for safety.
Waymo has Uber and Lift buy-ins as well as hailing software. What does Tesla have other than theories and Musk’s eternal promises?
What About Safety?
Please note a New Swiss Re study: Waymo is safer than even the most advanced human-driven vehicles.
Today, we’re sharing our new cutting-edge research with Swiss Re, one of the world’s leading reinsurers, analyzing liability claims related to collisions from 25.3 million fully autonomous miles driven by Waymo. The study uses auto liability claims aggregate statistics as a proxy for at-fault collisions and expands on our previous research. It demonstrates that as we’ve scaled operations across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, the Waymo Driver significantly outperforms both the overall driving population and the latest generation of human-driven vehicles equipped with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).
Notably, the Waymo Driver’s safety advantages hold true even when compared to newer vehicles (2018-2021 models) equipped with modern safety technology. This includes advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) such as automated emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane keeping assistance, and blind spot warning. When compared to this group, the Waymo Driver showed an 86% reduction in property damage claims and 90% reduction in bodily injury claims.
“Our research shows how insurance data can help evaluate autonomous vehicle safety and provide the framework needed to support widespread adoption,” said Ali Shahkarami, Global Head P&C Solutions at Swiss Re. “By analyzing a larger dataset across multiple cities, we deepened our understanding of how this technology performs in real-world conditions. These promising results help underscore the potential of this technology to create a safer future for our roads.”
Robocars Did Arrive in 2024
2024 marks the beginning of the end of chauffeur-driven taxi and limo services.
For all the taunting I received about how autonomous driving would never work, robocars did arrive in 2023 with an enormous ramp in mid-2024.
My original estimate was 2022-2024. OK I was two years late if you see it that way. But this taxi ramp-up is way faster than I expected.
The end of chauffeur-driven taxi and limo services at major airports will soon arrive.
What About Trucking?
I thought we would have point-to-point interstate self-driving trucks first, or at least at the same time.
Conceptually, hub-to-hub interstate driving is easier. I envisioned human drivers would do the last trucking miles in the cities.
I believe that vision may still the case because city driving has more perils and unknowns than well-understood interstate routes that change infrequently. However, I do not totally rule out point-to-point.
Regardless, millions or trucking jobs will vanish as I have stated.
Robo-trucks can drive 24-7 with no driver. There will be fewer accidents and lower insurance rates. No strikes.
The advantage of getting rid of the driver and ability to drive continually without mandated breaks is too cost advantageous to not happen, and quickly once it does.
The trucking start was slower than I expected, but the ramp will be faster because the cost savings are too great.
All things considered, I called this correctly. The fully autonomous nay-sayers were wrong.
3 hour, 20x video of a Tesla FSD driving the Cannonball, coast to coast. He counted 6 minutes of his own driving, mostly in super charger parking lots.
Pretty much freeway, of course.
For perspective:
“AI Overview
Uber completed more than 9.4 billion trips in 2023.”
I saw yesterday a hilarious video of someone riding a Waymo that just kept going round in circles when he needed to go to the airport, and then he had to call support who had to intervene to stop the car.
This is when you pull the emergency stop cord.
Musk should just buy Waymo and pretend he started it.
There goes a million attourney jobs.
I call that a good start.
Now what to do with those 15 new illegal aliens that have no trucking jobs.
No, a good start is those million attorneys at the bottom of the ocean. In the interim, they’ll have to find something to chase besides ambulances.
The illegals could pull rickshaws.
Good idea. A low cost option for the millions of unemployed and broke truckers!
Poor eddy. So few replies. No one cares about your cult conspiracy nonsense. You should switch to something more believeable; like UFO encounters.
Autonomous vehicles are almost exclusively electric vehicles. Seems it is hard to have one without the other. I wonder if the need for electric will hold autonomous back?
Good point but it could do the opposite if if FSD catches on. Since it’s safer insurance companies could demand it.
I find it interesting that some here seem pro-autonomous, yet anti-EV.
Maybe they are just against what the government is doing to subsidize EVs, force consumers into EVs, and take away the ICE options through legislation and EPA mandates.
So if Trump ends all subsidies and mandates, demand for EVs will climb? Reverse psychology?
I don’t know and I don’t care. I have driven an EV once on a work trip and hated the experience.
I favor horse-drawn carriages without any driver. Just tell the horse where you want to go.
Me. What makes it interesting?
The statement “Autonomous vehicles are almost exclusively electric vehicles.” is true but not necessary. I just want all the drunk drivers to get home safe, I don’t care what they’re using for fuel.
Exactly, Waymo has data to show their autonomous driver is 75% + safer than humans
Electric cars are more effective and vastly lower cost due to essentially zero maintenance and lower incidence of failure. Especially in a robo-taxi scenario where they can be charged at off-peak hours. The electric robo-taxi solves a lot of problems in dense cities: expensive parking, lack of charging infrastructure in multi-family structures, and a lack of space to work on your own ICE vehicle.
If they are vastly lower cost, why do you think businesses do not use them? It seems like the change would be forced by a single good example. Ideology and politics are fun to argue but if it were truly cheaper and more convenient… I mean there were real people who bought the Chevy Astro.
Businesses do use them, and plan to use them even more as fast as they can be built
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/everything-you-need-to-know-about-amazons-electric-delivery-vans-from-rivian
What is the reason to postulate electric is required?
The requirements for driving should be the same for both (assuming automatic transmission – and I doubt anyone will develop automatic driving for standard transmissions).
Hilarious! The robot drives but a human has to switch the gears.
EV’s are just a transition to H2 fuel cell cars. Oil companies seem heavily involved in moving into H2 production. It’s a natural for them. If true, then Trump, a strong supporter of oil, might start talking up H2.
Mish, haven’t seen many posts about the trucking until today, but there are three companies here in Pittsburgh working on it, two are my clients and I have to tell you first hand, the tech is incredible. One is working on the physical hardware (laser imaging, miniaturization) and the other working on the logistics/AI. It will happen as you say, especially long-haul.
For those who are interested:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91181504/how-aurora-is-finding-its-own-lane-on-the-road-to-autonomous-trucking
They are looking for a deal with NVIDIA for AI guidance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aurora-shares-jump-deal-nvidia-132255377.html
Thanks for those.
Once it happens it will be very rapid
Thanks!
Waymo is all over LA’s Westside. I’ve noticed a high percentage of riders I’ve observed are put together young females. Possibly tired of overly friendly male Uber and Lyft drivers. I see a dozen per day commuting to work
Mish, I can give my own POV over Grok’s perception.
I bought a new Tesla in October when Trump was on the rise and I thought the EV tax credit would disappear.
I picked it up in a city 100 miles away. I drove myself for the first time in this EV (besides a five-minute test ride beforehand with a friend) all 100 miles from the dealership in a metropolitan city to my driveway, using regenerative braking and never ONCE touching the actual brake. I think the low-end total maintenance of these vehicles will likely be mind-blowing.
Now I’m trying out a free one-month subscription of the FSD (Full Self Driving) mode. Last week, I drove our of my downtown driveway, through the city, onto the interstate and into my parents’ driveway in another city (200 miles total) without ever touching the steering wheel. The vehicle dealt with pedestrians crossing the street, four-way stops, passing slower vehicles on the interstate, etc.
Of course, these won’t be for everyone. But I paid less (before the tax credit) than the average priced new car in the US.
I’m not surprised at all Waymo drives better than Tesla’s FSD with its Level 4 Technology. But there will only be so many autonomous taxis bought and operated within the US. But the number of personal vehicles that can be bought and operated nearly autonomously (and who knows in the future) by regular people could be higher by a factor of thousands. Right now, Tesla is the only one there in the US. Five years from now, such EVS and their super-easy use may be everywhere (or not).
My dad grew up buying, driving and fixing up American muscle cars. He has been bad-mouthing EVs since they came out. I took him on a drive with the FSD. He was floored; never thought it had that potential.
You should try to find a way to test-drive firsthand a Tesla with FSD for blogging purposes; it would be interesting to see how your thoughts may change.
That’s advantage Tesla. It can build the technology into every Tesla, and potentially license it to other manufacturers the way it does with the charging network.
Waymo uses refurbished Jaguars, and could also potentially license the technology, but who would pay the premium for lidar/radar for every car?
You are a road hazard.
You make me afraid to drive …
One of my best friends bought the Model Y last year. He loaned it to me for a weekend when my car was in the shop. Like you, I never had to touch the brake once when driving and overall it was a very nice driving experience and I enjoyed 1 pedal driving (similar to golf cart driving).
He loves the FSD feature (he bought it day 1). But the reason he loves it is the reason he bought the car and that reason is that he loves to have a few adult beverages while playing golf, beer league hockey etc and so he uses it to drive himself home during those times. I suspect he’s not the only person doing that.
So you can’t heel & toe the corners?
I do notice that the brake lights don’t come on as soon or as often as other cars. Often, they come on right before the car comes to a complete stop. Is this a function of the regentive branking? If so, it is dangerous.
“But there will only be so many autonomous taxis bought and operated within the US. But the number of personal vehicles that can be bought and operated nearly autonomously (and who knows in the future) by regular people could be higher by a factor of thousands.”
I think most people here are missing the whole point of autonomous vehicles and it’s not so that everybody goes out and buys one, it’s the exact opposite. Musk is on record saying that the point of autonomous vehicles is for them to be summoned when you need them and then let others use them when you don’t need it. This alone would reduce traffic 10 fold day to day.
Most people get up drive to a work location and the car sits in the lot for 8 to 10 hours a day until it’s time to go home then drive back and let the car sit in the garage for another 10 hours, it’s a huge waste of capital, insurance, and other expenses.
It’s one of the reasons I got rid of my car in favor of uber but a self-driving car would be even better.
I want the freedom to get in the car and go whenever I want. By your logic you should be hot bunking with 2 other people since you are only using your bed 8 hours a day.
Personally, this is how I would also use cars as well. Generally, I don’t like huge capital investments that depreciate and need maintenance and are rarely used. That is one reason I live in a downtown environment. this is the first time my family of four has ever had more than one car. Walking, biking and the occasional Uber/car rental is easy, cheap and satisfying. And if it ever becomes legal for my Tesla to drive itself to pick up people for cash, off it will go.
BUT I don’t think most Americans are even close to this culturally. Many don’t like EVs because of range anxiety. Think about how they would view their car leaving them and being used by others. They would save or earn tons of money, but would probably be stressed, anxious and angry at this prospect. So Tesla may be on the right track for succeeding in America in the mid-term future (but I’m not a shareholder).
For now, I just program my Tesla to move itself within my work parking lot (thru FSD) once a day to a new spot to avoid morning and afternoon sun.
You wouldn’t OWN the car. The car you need would come from local fleets that are positioned so that you would never have to wait more than say, 10 minutes for a ride.
Since all autonomous cars would be networked, traffic would be faster as lights could be tuned and coordinated with the cars on the road.
Humans will be prohibited from driving on public roads.
Removing car ownership would remove the need for parking and garages. Streets could be smaller, driveways not necessary.
Sounds great for those wanting to save money and just catch a ride (like people have been doing in major cities like NYC for decades.
But again, culturally I’m not sure we’re close to that in the USA
“This alone would reduce traffic 10 fold day to day.” I think you need to not say that without citing studies or defining words – especially “This alone”
This is what I have been saying for years. Musk is stealing from me!
Thanks good comment
Trump’s Going Places With Energy, but Biden’s the Backseat Driverhttps://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/12/26/trumps_going_places_with_energy_but_bidens_the_backseat_driver_1079311.html
I took a ride in a Waymo in San Francisco a few months ago. It functioned safer and better than any cab driver. I was in front and could see all the objects that Waymo had identified as potential issues on the screen. It went around someone blocking the lane and unloading luggage. It saw a bicyclist whiz by it on the right side and did not make a right turn. I was impressed.
What payments do they accept?
Did the car help you unload your luggage?
Enjoy it while you can https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/why-waymo-and-cruise-will-go-bankrupt.html
If an autonomous vehicle had to chose between prioritizing the safety of its own passengers over others, or vice-versa, what would or should it chose?
Problem exists independent of “autonomous vehicle” aspect.
Well of course, but we’re discussing autonomous vehicles that presumably will operate one way or the other. Who makes this decision?
Depends on if I am a passenger in said car or not.
“First you make it run. Then you make it fast.” Waymo is following that dictum. And, now, to scale, they need to “make it fast”. It would be no surprise if Waymo’s current operations are burning significant money. Self-driving ain’t just software (where you can, literally, make it up in volume). I personally think they’ll “make it fast” before their bank account empties. But, that’s a wishful feeling. And is powered by my feeling that there are significant logic improvements coming to AI that’ll dramatically “make it fast”.
Um, it’s owned by Alphabet. They’re not going to run out of money.
Remember BlackBerry phones? That’s Waymo.
Why would you make that comparison?
Blackberry was very successful (still has the best encrypted technology). They just missed the boat on smart phones (their CEO was too busy trying to buy an NHL franchise and move it to Hamilton during those key 2-3 years) in the same way Intel did with smart phone chips.
Waymo is no where near as successful as Blackberry was and there is no indication they are going to miss the boat on a new technology that makes them obsolete.
It was initially successful and as you said then Apple ate their lunch. Apple leapfrogged BlackBerry in the technology people wanted and Tesla will do the same and for the same reason. It will make it possible to drive everywhere in FSD mode while Waymo can only work in limited areas.
Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has said that Tesla is “far ahead” in self-driving car technology. He is right.
Waymo and Tesla are hardly the only outfits pushing on self-driving. China has a number of entrants and trials going on.
All will end up bankrupt https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/why-waymo-and-cruise-will-go-bankrupt.html
I took a short ride with Waymo in LA last month. It did a very good job of driving. Only one thing to note in the drive was a largish U-haul truck taking a chunk out of a fairly narrow street.
The claim that Waymo is way-way safer than human drivers may be true. I wonder whether the comparison is apples to apples. That is, are the human drivers those who stick to the areas Waymo drives in?
Yes I don’t think too much death occurs in city driving. It’s mostly highway or 55 MPH 2 lane roads. But they might be comparing city human drivers with city robot drivers.
In any case, all of these changes are good. I hate driving.
Yet Elon is worth more than anyone and some even believe he is president. President Musk guy please don’t reply!
I AM President, and King of the Incels… bow before me!
Ok. That was funny. You got my upvote vote!
As more people get comfortable with robo-taxis, they will drive less themselves. This will reduce the annual death count in the USA from vehicle accidents. “Safety” improvement is one thing that the masses react to and therefore government will also.
Once government takes note of this, they will start to mandate the elimination of human drivers from the road. The easiest way to do this is to simply mandate removal of the steering wheel and control pedals from future vehicles making them impossible to ever be used by humans.
I don’t think it would ever come to eliminating steering wheels and control pedals (for one thing they might be needed in cases where sensors fail and you need to manually drive the vehicle to get repaired or towing things like boats and trailers which will require a much better AI to handle).
What will stop human drivers long before that is insurance rates. What will happen is that rates for automated driving will be WAY lower than those for manual driving and that will make 99% of people stop driving (other than things like off road fun or driving on a race track etc).
I just thought of another benefit of robocars that I’ve never seen anyone else mention and that is that every car could then start driving on the proper side of the road (the right side)!
This would reduce manufacturing costs as the steering wheel and pedals would only need to be on the left side of the car. Imagine this BRIGHT future, with everyone in the world driving on the same side of the road!
But of course, with no steering wheels, then this wouldn’t matter one way or the other.
Waymo is driving circles around Tesla:
‘Is this a prank?’: See Waymo passenger in driverless car stuck on a loop | CNN
Musk thaought a convincing name such as “Actually Smart Summon” would suffice:
Tesla under investigation for parking retrieval feature crashes | CNN Business
Lovely
How many stories go the other way?
Way more for Waymo than for Tesla.
My comments/links were posted primarily for entertainment value.
Congrats on the correct call.
And on top of these troubles for Tesla, this “news” story doesn’t help.
BREAKING: New legislation has been introduced to make daylight saving time permanent, ensuring that clocks will never ‘fall back’ again.
Lmao. Who could downvote this? Like downvoting puppies.
Has nothing to do with the topic. Try to pay attention. Or go create your own blog.
Thanks mom
“Ever duplicitous, FDR at first campaigned against tariffs in the months leading up to the 1932 election, promising that trade liberalization would be a key part of his administration. Echoing Democratic leaders such as William Jennings Bryan and Al Smith, FDR made tariff reduction a centerpiece at the start of his campaign against Hoover. By the end of his campaign, however, FDR was singing from the protectionist gospel of the Republican Party. His flexibility in regard to these serious issues of economic and financial policy evidenced an agenda that was first and foremost political. The same could be said for FDR’s approach to foreign policy and especially relations with Europe.”
From the book Inflated
I have much more important work to do than delivering things I have been promising for years.
Not wanting to discredit the lidar/radar solution. It clearly works on a limited scale, but does it on a mass scale? The situation is similar to thousands of bats flying in a dark cave. How or if they use only their own clicks or process clicks from other bats?
The situation is similar to self-driving in busy traffic.
Luckily, there is actually a research on the bat problem.
https://phys.org/news/2016-01-how-bats-recognize-their-own.html
If bats can do it, then humans certainly can also via technology.
Perhaps we will install bats in each car to help guide the car? Of course, you will have to feed the bats regularly.
Do you hear my cell phone conversations every time you place a call?
Do you expect more cars than cell phones?
Given the recent surge in terrible drivers (think illegal aliens with drivers licenses) out there, would not surprise me if a monkey driving a car would be considered safer on average. That’s because monkeys don’t drink and drive.
“millions or trucking jobs will vanish as I have stated”
Try backing a 45′ trailer at a load in 10′ wide.
Trivial work for computers.
They already do things to nanometer precision in manufacturing.
Did you my post carefully?
Conceptually, hub-to-hub interstate driving is easier. I envisioned human drivers would do the last trucking miles in the cities.
I believe that vision may still the case because city driving has more perils and unknowns than well-understood interstate routes that change infrequently. However, I do not totally rule out point-to-point.
Saw a story today that longshoreman are getting the fear of automation willies and are attempting to block further port automation to maintain their own jobs.
Same since about 1985. That’s as far back as I remember, the concept must be older.
Example: advent of the closed container lifted onto truck bed instead of loading and unloading ships.
Truthfully I think until the laws change to favor robot driving, by making the people responsible for an accident with one, the animosity towards AI and robotics will be more of the deciding force.
Last mile by drone?
Funny, that’s the scenario a self driving truck would be excellent at. Full 360 degree LIDAR sensors and a perfect model of how wheel angle affects backup outcome. Perfect “vision” in dark and fog. I bet trucks will develop a little bot that can roll out of the back and roll into the parking spot before you start backing up, so there are two points of data gathering and zero blind spots.
Excited by the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico today. Will be buying the updated map for the kiddies.
Lol, after all the woke renaming that went on during the last four years, it would be a welcome change.
I do disagree with this statement, “Robo-trucks can drive 24-7 with no driver. There will be fewer accidents and lower insurance rates. No strikes.”
I think we will see the return of bandits/pirates on the freeway, stopping and stealing stuff from these is a foregone conclusion. I can already see organized crime figuring out which of these self-driving trucks holds expensive stuff in them like NVIDIA GPUs.
We are already seeing retail stores lock everything up behind glass doors, the next easy obvious targets are unmanned vehicles. Insurance rates won’t go down because of this alone.
And why is all that stuff locked up?
You mean not enforcing laws in liberal city utopias leads to less safety and more crime? Who’da thunk it. And yet you keep voting for the same people. Definition of insanity.
Electric saws take care of that in only a minute.
A drone with two guns will be enough. We can call it Wyatt Air Marshall.
Only when they enter liberal urban strongholds
So you actually believe that a single human truck driver is all that stands between gangs of thieves stealing whatever is on a truck?
The idea of thieves somehow stopping driver less trucks and stealing the goods is amusing. Those trucks are going to be monitored 24×7 and the moment they slow down, camera images will show why and if it looks like a gang of thieves, Police will be dispatched immediately. This is how it works now for Brinks trucks and trucks that move highly sought after goods (cigarettes, alcohol etc) because my Uncle drove those kinds of loads and he told me he’d get a cell call when he stopped to go to the bathroom asking if everything was OK.
Remember the entire country is now served by Starlink so it won’t even rely on cell technology. The data will go over satellite.
A truck leaving any California port and driving to say New Mexico, Colorado, etc will drive through miles of empty land where police won’t be responding in any quick manner.
And for all you guys that don’t pay attention, this has already been happening with rail cars for decades and it’s gotten much worse.
https://news.google.com/search?q=rail%20car%20thefts&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
It’ll be much easier with self-driving trucks, just need to find a good spot to ambush them far away from police/sheriff and any kind of immediate responders.
Some people are already using AI to make tentative plans to score some loot ;).
The driverless trucks could be fitted with death rays to zap bandits. Peeew!
I guarantee thieves will try (they always do).
Some might even be successful once or twice. But I also guarantee they will catch loads of thieves attempting to do this (you think police won’t notice when they keep ambushing in the same area and not setup traps to catch them or mark goods like they do bills or even just use drones that can fly hundreds of miles to monitor where they go etc).
Come on Tim, you’re only thinking the truck will drive digitally and the thieves won’t do so as well. These trucks will be hacked and be-redirected to where they need to be sent to be stolen. heck, if I were a hacker, i’d just hack the truck and send them to mexico, U.S. police won’t be able to go there. We’re talking thousands of square miles to cover, police won’t be able to stop it any more than they can stop any major crime now in cities where they are only a mile or two away.
Why would your thieves use that level of skill and ambition to rob truckloads of sneakers?
Trucking thefts tend to occur when drivers are at rest stops. If automated trucks don’t stop, then they will have less exposure.
The solution for Tesla is simple, get President Trump to issue some sort of sanctions against Waymo/California to ban it then let Tesla in. That’s what politics is all about isn’t it?
There is no more free market, just mob like government muscle to offer ‘protection’ racket. It’ll be a big shame if something bad happened to that state that doesn’t conform.
Trump is not mentioned in this article a single time….living rent free in you obviously. Take a walk. Deep breathing perhaps.
Ask and ye shall receive….
https://newrepublic.com/article/189904/tesla-robotaxis-ai-musk-wants-trump
Like I said. He’s not in the article. The consumer can decide what they want for their robo experience. If Elon’s sucks, it won’t be successful. Which is fine with me.
Tesla will have to wait for the next democrat president to do that
This and my pending SEC charges going away are well worth the 277 million I paid. Now if I could figure out a way to get rid of this greasy old windbag that keeps saying he’s president…
Disappointed its only available in a few cities as of now. Was hoping it would be broader.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
Was hoping my kids would never need to drive themselves
They are still gathering large amounts of data.
You’ll notice that all 4 cities are in areas where the weather is almost always sunny (thus eliminating the weather factor). Once that’s conquered in the next couple of years they will start to gradually work on areas where it’s not always sunny. The last places to get driver less taxi’s will be where it snows.
Serve ’em right for living in such areas! Snow looks good in photos or when you look out your window after a fresh fall. Otherwise, no thanks to snow…
Perspective… population 2024
USA: 345,426,571
Arizona: 7,582,384
Montana:1,137,233
Yes, Tesla is gathering such info, too. If I manually disengage my FSD, my Tesla gives me an option to upload a short voice recording why (“car too close to another vehicle, car accelerating too quickly for my taste, car confusing green turn light with stoplight,” etc.). I always oblige to teach the tech
With global warming, pretty soon there won’t be any snowy areas in the lower 48 at all!
They cannot launch in more cities… the burn would go into the 100’s of billions
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/why-waymo-and-cruise-will-go-bankrupt.html