Autonomous Vehicles

After months of testing, the Silicon Valley-based driverless car company began offering its 24/7 robotaxi service in Santa Monica this week. In November, Waymo One will move on to other parts of the region.

These relatively new transportation technologies are close to transforming the way people and cargo travel, some of the world’s biggest names in business and politics were told at a high-powered gathering.

A crash in San Francisco involving a driverless Cruise taxi happened at an inopportune time for autonomous vehicle companies, which were already under scrutiny by state regulators.

In a letter, lawmakers urged the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to collect more data on autonomous vehicles, citing serious safety concerns about how they operate in real-world situations.

This somewhat new pivot from self-driving cars to self-driving trucks is the latest sign of how difficult it is to fully take our hands off the wheel, industry experts and researchers said.

An autonomous tractor from Illinois firm Sabanto aims to solve two issues plaguing modern farming: the growing scarcity of labor in rural areas and the increasing costs of machinery.

The California Senate passed a bill Monday mandating human drivers behind the wheel of autonomous trucks on state highways for at least the next five years, citing safety concerns as the cause.

Stack AV this week announced the launch of its autonomous trucking business in the city. The company leverages self-driving technology to improve efficiency and enhance safety in the trucking industry.

Mishaps are adding to traffic and safety concerns over driverless vehicles, which zip around the city’s streets surrounded by sensors and cameras, collecting data and promising a world with fewer human interactions.

This week, the company began initial testing and data collection in Raleigh. The company is looking to expand its robotaxi service beyond San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin, where it began offering rides to passengers last year.

AV companies work to serve their bottom line, and so it will take regulation and government oversight to ensure the autonomous vehicle revolution really does improve life in cities rather than create new problems.

As Cruise and Waymo face criticism from San Francisco officials over the safety of driverless cars, data shows the robotaxis are among the leaders in crashes reported involving vehicles with automated driving systems.

Tesla Inc. failed to fix limitations in its autopilot system following a gruesome Florida crash that killed a driver in 2016, company engineers said in a lawsuit over a very similar 2019 fatal collision.

It didn’t take long for San Francisco residents to encounter traffic problems with Cruise robotaxis following last week’s California Public Utilities Commission vote to expand the driverless taxi services.

California Public Utilities Commission agreed to allow Waymo and Cruise to expand its autonomous taxi service in San Francisco, allowing the vehicles to operate citywide — any time of day — and without safety drivers onboard.

San Francisco-based Cruise has begun testing its self-driving vehicles in Atlanta. A driver will be behind the wheel in the initial phase as its cars roll through parts of downtown, Midtown and Buckhead.

Despite legislation and other forces pumping the brakes on autonomous vehicles on public thoroughfares, self-driving shuttle May Mobility officials are optimistic about the technology’s future.

The Ohio Department of Transportation and DriveOhio — an Ohio government organization focused on mobility technology — are rolling out a four-year, $8 million plan to bring these semitrucks to roads in both states.