SF News Confused Waymo Cars Block 101 On-Ramp In Potrero Hill, Then Go Down Closed Road It’s SF driving 101 that you should not follow a confused self-driving Waymo vehicle down a closed road, but that’s what happened Tuesday night near Highway 101 in Potrero Hill, after a stalled Waymo traffic jam led to the robotaxis veering into a closed lane.
Business & Tech Just as Waymo Launches In Los Angeles, Statewide Bill Gains Momentum to Allow More Local Control of Robocars Waymo is getting set to launch its autonomous taxi service in Los Angeles this week, and just announced it will launch in Austin this year. Meanwhile, California lawmakers are considering a bill that would give cities more leeway in limiting the company's impact.
Business & Tech Has the Self-Driving Car Bubble Burst? Some Analysts Say So, As Apple Exits the Autonomous Vehicle Race When the $70 billion tech giant Apple abandons an idea, it may be an idea simply not worth pursuing, which could be the state of the suddenly struggling autonomous vehicle industry.
SF News Waymo Problems With Self-Driving Cars, as Waymo Collisions With Tow Truck Force Software Recall Two self-driving Waymo robotaxis hit a truck being towed in Phoenix two months ago, perhaps confused because the angle of a truck being towed but facing rearward, and the Google-owned company recalled the software running the vehicles.
SF News Peskin Says SFPD Has ‘Promising Leads’ In Hunt for Who Torched That Waymo In Chinatown Saturday Whoever set that self-driving Waymo car on fire in Chinatown Saturday night may have reason for worry, as the district’s supervisor Aaron Peskin claims that SFPD has “promising leads” on suspects.
Business & Tech Self-Driving Waymo Collides With Bicyclist In Potrero Hill A self-driving Waymo robotaxi apparently hit a bicyclist at about 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at 17th and Mississippi streets, which may put a dent in Waymo’s hopes to be considered the safer of the two big self-driving car companies.
Business & Tech Feds, DMV Investigating More SF Cruise Robotaxi Incidents Than We Realized, Two Cars Allegedly Almost Hit Kids The self-driving robotaxi company Cruise may have had a worse track record of highly dangerous near-misses than previously reported, and faces five state and federal probes into incidents like almost running over children.
SF News Cruise Offers Mea Culpa In Form of Third-Party Report on October 2 Robotaxi Disaster Self-driving taxi company Cruise, owned by General Motors, has released a report by a third-party law firm which they say will "help both Cruise and the industry learn from the incident, strengthen protocols, and improve technology."
Business & Tech Waymo Looks to Expand to the Peninsula, SFO, and Sunnyvale Just as the City of San Francisco is suing the state's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) over the expansion of robotaxi permits, Alphabet-owned Waymo wants to expand its permits further to cover the Peninsula and part of Santa Clara County, as well as LA.
Business & Tech Cruise Is Offering $75K to Settle CPUC Investigation Into Crash In Which Woman Was Dragged General Motors-owned robotaxi outfit Cruise is offering $75,000 to "resolve" an investigation by California regulators into a gruesome October 2 crash incident involving one of its vehicles, which set off a cascade of negative impacts on the company's operations.
SF News Protesters Outside Public Utilities Commission Call for Ouster of Commissioner Who Worked for Cruise A rally outside the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) offices in San Francisco Thursday morning was calling for the prosecution of executives at self-driving taxi company Cruise, and for the ouster of the commissioner who helped approve Cruise's permits.
SF News State Commission Alleges That Cruise Withheld Evidence, Misled Public in Pedestrian-Dragging Incident The California Public Utilities Commission is hauling self-driving taxi company Cruise to court for allegedly “failing to provide complete information” by leaving out the rather significant detail that their car dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in an October 2 collision.
SF News Cruise Recalling Self-Driving Robotaxis Nationwide, Amidst Report Vehicles Had Safety Issues Around Children While the recall appears temporary, Cruise is pulling all of its 950 self-driving robotaxis from the streets, and a separate report shows Cruise internal communications acknowledged safety issues around children and holes in roads.
Business & Tech California DMV Suspends Cruise Robotaxis From Operating In SF, Indefinitely One of the two companies operating driverless taxis in San Francisco will no longer be able to do so, after the DMV has suspended their permit allowing them to take passengers without a test driver present.
Business & Tech Feds Now Investigating Cruise Self-Driving Robotaxis Over Their Behavior Around Pedestrians The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a probe into an unknown number of incidents where Cruise robotaxis allegedly encroached on pedestrians, in the wake of one SF Cruise car running over a hit-and-run victim.
Business & Tech Cruise Announces Software Updates to Its AVs In Response to Emergency Situations After a number of concerning incidents involving its autonomous vehicles getting in the way of fire engines and ambulances, Cruise announced a set of software improvements Thursday aimed at "minimizing operational impact" for emergency responders.
Business & Tech Driver Strikes Pedestrian Near Fifth and Market; Cruise Car Subsequently Runs Her Over and Stops On Top Of Her A pedestrian collision Monday night is likely to provide more fodder for the debate over autonomous vehicles and how they react to certain uncommon situations — and it has Cruise once again in aggressive defense mode.
Business & Tech Cruise CEO Says SF ‘Should Be Rolling Out the Red Carpet’ for Robotaxis in TechCrunch Disrupt Interview In his first major public interview since the DMV cut their San Francisco fleet in half, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said “we cannot expect perfection” from the self-driving cars, and acknowledged a possibility they could leave town if regulators curtail them any further.
SF News Pedestrian Who Died In August Incident That Paramedics Blamed on Cruise Vehicles Was Struck By Muni Bus We are now learning more about an incident reported on last month by the San Francisco Fire Department in which an ambulance carrying a person who was severely injured on a SoMa street was allegedly briefly prevented from leaving the scene due to two Cruise robotaxis in the way.
SF News In Escalation of AV Backlash, Black-Clad Person Seen Vandalizing Cruise Vehicle With Hammer As has become clear, autonomous vehicles are not going to be allowed to proliferate on San Francisco's streets without some kind of protest. And the latest act of protest took things to a newly aggressive level.
SF News Cruise Rejects Blame From SFFD's Claim It Blocked First Responders in Pedestrian Fatality Incident The autonomous vehicle company says that its driverless cars didn't block an ambulance's response to an emergency incident, which contributed to a person's death, and that it's cooperating with authorities.
SF News California DMV Steps Into Autonomous Taxi Debate, Tells Cruise to Halve Its Fleet In SF After a series of concerning incidents involving Cruise autonomous vehicles, the California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an order late Friday asking Cruise to reduce its fleet of AVs in San Francisco.
SF News Cruise Vehicle Involved In Collision With SF Fire Truck; Separate Collision With Cruise Vehicle Occurs In Mission It was a rough night for the robotaxis Thursday, with two self-driving Cruise vehicles getting into car crashes — one striking, or getting struck by, a fire truck that was responding to a call, and one passenger was hospitalized with a head injury.
SF News SF City Attorney Files Motion to Halt Roll-Out of More Self-Driving Cruise and Waymo Robotaxis City Attorney David Chiu is ramping up the pushback against Waymo and Cruise self-driving robotaxis in SF, filing a motion with the state to reverse their approval of unlimited robotaxis on San Francisco streets.
SF Politics Friday’s North Beach Self-Driving Car Clusterf*** Has SF Officials Begging the State to Walk Back Approval Barely 24 hours after getting state approval to run their self-driving cars at all hours in SF, Cruise robotaxis froze up en masse in North Beach Friday night. Now SF City Hall is urging a state commission to go into reverse on that approval.
