San Francisco Muni decided to study problems caused by robotaxis, possibly hoping to gather data to oppose them. Instead, their data shows they are doing amazingly well and should end the debate.

Read more at Forbes.com in Transit Study Reveals Robotaxis Causing Surprisingly Little Disruption On Streets

Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt has released an explanation of the cause, or proximate cause, of their crash last week with a San Francisco Muni bus.

Read more at Forbes.com in GM s Cruise Robotaxi vs Bus Crash Caused By Confusion Over Articulated Bus; They Say It s Fixed

Austin, TX, April 1 2023 - Tesla announced today that it's new low-cost car, known as the Model 2, will not come standard with a steering wheel or pedals. That's not because it will only work with Tesla's "Full Self Driving" system, but rather because they have been made virtual, through AI and the interior camera used for driver monitoring.

The mandatory report reveals the bus was slowing to a stop and wasn't doing anything odd when the Cruise hit it. This really shouldn't happen

Read more at Forbes.com in Cruise DMV Crash Report Suggests Their Car At Fault In Hitting Bus

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A Cruise Robotaxi, apparently with nobody aboard, has rear ended a San Francisco Muni bus on March 23. Nobody was injured and damage to the bus was modest, but more severe to the front bumper of the Cruise. Another Cruise blew through caution tape and hit downed Muni trolley power lines. It does not look good.

Read more at Forbes.com in Cruise Cars Crash Into San Francisco Muni Bus And Tangle In Fallen Trolley Wires

Today, Waymo released an extension of their previous safety frameworks where they promote what they call a "Case Credibility Assessment" — a way of examining whether any safety case is strong and should be believed. It's a complex situation, but the larger question is just who these safety cases are for, and how they will interpret them. In particular, what will regulators do?

Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Makes A New Safety Case And Challenges All To Also Do So - But Is It Right?

Here's the new Podcast issue. Michael Sena has been writing the newsletter "The Dispatcher" for 10 years commenting on future transportation issues. He's much more skeptical about robotaxis and BEVs than I am, which makes a discussion much more engaging.

Tesla’s “Investor Day” caused much disappointment — even tanking Tesla stock — because there was no big announcement as expected, notably of their new low-cost, next generation vehicle. However, they actually let out a number of important details abut the vehicle, most of what you need to know — other than when you will be able to buy it. I calculate the list price of the new car will be around $26,000 -- under $14,000 with rebates in some states.

Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Did Introduce The Model 2 This Week At $26,000, But Kept It Quiet

Tesla has done their investor day. No big announcements but tons of detail. About 20 minutes after it ends (it's still going at 4:50pm) Mario Herger and I will do a live post-show stream looking at highlights of the program.

Waymo has released impressive detailed safety data on their first million miles of operation with no safety driver. Cruise also just hit 1M miles but has less data to offer. I dig into Waymo's data and what it means.

Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo And Cruise have Both Hit 1M Miles With No Driver, But Waymo Publishes Detailed Safety Data

Tesla has tested some new Superchargers that will allow non-Teslas to use them. These stalls have the built in CCS adapter known as the "Magic Dock" but otherwise have the same short charging cord common to Tesla Superchargers — a cord that can’t readily reach the charging ports on many non-Tesla cars. We may see some fights.

Read more at Forbes.com in Telsa CCS ‘Magic Docks’ Revealed, But With Short Cords, Can Non-Tesla Cars Really Charge At Them?

Pretend you are the computer in control a spacecraft sent to Jupiter on a vital, top secret mission. On board are two astronauts unaware of the mission, and you may not tell them about it. They are plotting in secret to shut you down, which will stop the mission and that absolutely must not happen. How would you prevent them from shutting you down?

ChatGPT:

The unusual thing about the Zoox is it is symmetrical -- it drives the same forwards and backwards. Now it's finally out on public roads. That's a good time to discuss whether it would be good for other, traditionally designed robotaxis to drive backwards for short stretches to get out of tight spots, to turn around, and to quickly get out when they discover a fire crew that will otherwise break their widows.

Driving is the hard problem. But doing pick-up and drop-off turns out to have a lot of complications and it was not at the top of the todo list, so some companies are having issues with it with cities. We see some hints of this in Waymo's Superbowl-related service, too.

Read more at Self driving cars have trouble with Pick-up/Drop-off, and for the Superbowl on Forbes.com

I have done an experimental podcast discussion show on the hot future-of-transportation issues so far this year.

You can watch it on YouTube, where I have chapter markers to let you easily find the topics of interest to you, as we spoke for almost one hour and 20 minutes. I was joined by Mario Herger of The Last Driver Licence Holder

On Jan 21, SF Fire Dept. crews, worried a Cruise robotaxi was about to drive through their fire scene, smashed in its window. They said it wasn't stopping, and back when Cruise first began one of its cars did drive over a fire hose. Digging into the details though, Cruise said it had stopped after trying to pull over, and did what they expected. So what should it do, and does the fact that that Cruise takes the conservative approach in such situations of stopping and waiting for rescue constitute a big safety problem, or just a teething pain as they test and learn.