Business & Tech Tesla's Latest Aesthetic Atrocity: This Gold 'Cybercab' Spotted In SF Tesla appears to be testing its latest semi-autonomous taxi model in San Francisco, and in an effort to stand out from the competition, it has been painted gold.
Business & Tech Waymos Set to Return to SF Freeways Following Mishaps, Recall Waymo robotaxis are going to be popping back onto Bay Area freeways in the coming days, following a voluntary six-week recall in which the company's software was updated to better handle emergency road closures and construction.
SF Politics San Mateo Congressman Introduces Federal Bill Regulating Robotaxis During Emergencies In response to recent Waymo incidents that have delayed emergency responders, worsened large-scale traffic jams, and sent vehicles through construction zones, Congressman Kevin Mullin has introduced legislation to establish national standards for cities and manufacturers.
Business & Tech Zoox Recalls Autonomous Taxis After One Drives Into Active Smoke and Fire Scene The robots continue to learn and show us what they don't understand, and this week brings news of another type of emergency situation that a Zoox vehicle failed to safely navigate around.
Business & Tech Waymo Under Fire For July 4th Traffic Debacle, and For Leaving Passengers Helpless In Vandalism Situations We have a new and scary story about a Waymo vandalism situation that left a passenger helpless and in grave danger, and Mayor Daniel Lurie has reached out to the state about Waymos compounding the traffic nightmare on July 4th, and what could be done about it.
Business & Tech Report: Waymo Vehicles Create a Whole New Set of Traffic Safety Problems A recent CNN investigation found that while Waymo's robotaxis may reduce many of the risks associated with human drivers, they often create new problems of their own, from emergency response disruptions to close calls involving pedestrians and cyclists.
Business & Tech Waymo Temporarily Suspends Freeway Service After Weird Construction Zone Incident Goes Viral Waymo announced that it was pulling its autonomous taxis off of freeways in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami, saying that software improvements need to be made to improve the vehicles' performance in construction zones.
Business & Tech Waymo Safety Concerns During Emergencies Being Discussed In SF Hearing Concerns about the behavior of Waymo's autonomous taxis, following the December blackout in which the cars clogged intersections and created potential hazards, are being raised at a Monday hearing at SF City Hall.
Business & Tech Waymo Started Taking Passengers to SFO Today Waymos are ferrying paying customers from SF to San Francisco International Airport for the first time on Thursday, but the robocars will not be able to take you directly to the terminals, at least not yet.
Business & Tech SF Parents Putting Teens and Tweens In Waymos By Themselves, Violating Company Policy It's become common practice for busy San Francisco parents to summon Waymos for their kids, whatever the expense, to avoid having to chauffeur them everywhere, and because they're safer than Ubers or Lyfts.
Business & Tech Waymos Were Looking for Human Remote 'Confirmations' at Intersections During Blackout, Company Says It took a blackout across a huge swath of San Francisco for Waymo to figure out that its robot system for handling such situations has a key weakness, which caused huge traffic problems on Saturday.
SF News Video: Driverless Waymo Takes Passenger Through Police Standoff in Los Angeles Last week, a Waymo robotaxi was filmed driving through the scene of an active, high-risk felony arrest in Los Angeles. The autonomous car could be seen turning left through a red light, inches away from the suspect on the ground at gunpoint.
Business & Tech Amazon-Owned Autonomous Taxi Company Zoox Begins Offering Public Rides Zoox, whose funny-looking, steering-wheel-free, four-seater robocars have been roving about San Francisco for a while now, is now launching its first program to give rides to the general public.
Business & Tech Waymo Confirms Vehicle's Role In Death of 16th Street Bodega Cat, as Mourning Continues Waymo has acknowledged that one of its autonomous vehicles ran over a beloved corner store cat on 16th Street Monday, and the company says it will be making a donation to an animal rights organization in the cat's honor.
Business & Tech Get Ready for Uber Robotaxis to Start Rolling In SF Next Year In partnership with an electric car company and an autonomous tech company, Uber is getting back into the robotaxi business, ten years after its first rushed attempt to put autonomous vehicles on the road.
Business & Tech 50 Waymos Sent to Dead-End SF Street In Prankster's 'DDOS Attack' Local novelty app-maker Riley Walz is on something of a tear, garnering local media attention from the Chronicle and others for the third time in almost as many weeks with a prank on Waymo vehicles.
SF News San Bruno Police Witness Driverless Waymo Make Illegal U-Turn, Can’t Issue Ticket The San Bruno Police Department took to social media over the weekend highlighting its conundrum regarding how to hold a driverless vehicle accountable for violating traffic laws. A state law on the matter goes into effect July 2026.
Business & Tech Tesla Opens Up Robotoaxi App to All In SF, But Can They Even Do That? Tesla is pushing ahead with its Robotaxi service in SF, despite what we thought were a lot more regulatory hurdles that, as far as we know, Tesla's autonomous taxis have not actually gone through.
SF News Guy Seen Climbing Atop Waymo and Vandalizing It Charged In Four Separate Waymo Vandalism Incidents One well known unhinged gentleman in the SoMa neighborhood with a long rap sheet has really had it out for the robocars in the last six weeks, and he's now been charged in four separate incidents of vandalism.
Business & Tech Tesla Is Maybe Launching Robotaxis In San Francisco This Weekend, For Testing An internal memo apparently informed Tesla employees that the company was planning to put its robotaxis, with drivers behind the wheel, on the streets of San Francisco this weekend — but do they even have a permit for this?
Business & Tech Tourist In SF For Conference Ends Up Stuck In Weird Waymo Garage Limbo "This was like, out of a science fiction movie," says attorney Darren Findling, describing a brief ordeal he had during his first-ever Waymo ride on Monday morning in San Francisco.
Business & Tech Musk Threatens to Bring Tesla's LiDAR-Free Robotaxis to Bay Area Within Months Lest we thought that Elon Musk was finally done with the Bay Area, having closed down Xitter's offices and moved several of his companies to Texas, he's now claiming that Tesla's robotaxis will be coming to compete with Waymo soon.
Business & Tech It’s Not Your Imagination, Your Waymo May Be Driving More Like a Human The behavior of Waymo’s self-driving taxis has apparently shifted in recent weeks or months, based on safety data collected by the company, and it means the cars are doing certain things more like real people do behind the wheel.
Business & Tech Lyft Claims It Will Launch Self-Driving Cars Next Year, Though Only in Dallas Eight years after Lyft’s first claim that they would have self-driving cars, the rideshare company just made their latest declaration that these robotaxis are right around the corner, with “right around the corner” meaning “next year,” and only in Dallas.
Business & Tech Elon Musk Claims Tesla Will Have Self-Driving Robotaxis This Year, Which He Has Claimed in Five Previous Years This is at least the fifth time that Elon Musk has declared he’d have self-driving cars this year, though if it ends up being true, at least they would start rolling in Texas and not San Francisco.
