Last week saw Optimus Ride get sold for acqui-hire, and Local Motors shutting its doors. There are reasons why self-driving shuttles aren't that interesting right now, but that's going to change, and small van-sized vehicles are probably the future of group transportation.

Read why in my Forbes site story at Two self-driving shuttle companies die in a week, but there's good news

Well, I finally got to try Tesla FSD, and it was a big disappointment. From a robocar developer's viewpoint, it sucks and I give it an F.

I made a video review and a text one. The text one contains the review part of the video and lots more information. The video has the 3.5 mile sample ride around Apple HQ, full of mistakes.

Read the text review on Forbes.com at I get and review Tesla FSD -- and give it an F

Here's my annual countdown of the biggest stories in self-driving for 2021. This year I have a summary of my text stories, and also made a video countdown because there's lots of nice background video to use.

You can read the text version on the Forbes site at:

Airlines have removed change fees on many flights, a trend started by the pandemic. Everybody has wished to get more flexibility in airline ticket pricing and changing, though airlines want to squeeze out every dollar that every passenger can afford. The new trends in flexible work may allow an option to please both sides with tickets that allow the airline to change when you fly to fill seats in exchange for a lower price and easier changes.

I wrote before about the accursed "beep beep" that big machines make when they back up -- and even a few cars. There is an answer to it, and that answer has just come out of patent. So what can we do to ban the beep and make safer systems that don't destroy the peace and quiet of the air?

Read about that in this Forbes.com story at We cam finally do away with the accursed beep-beep

In a short period we saw 3 at-fault accidents involving robocars (with one being purely the fault of the safety driver) and we're going to see more. We're going to have to learn how to deal with them, to tell the difference between serious error that says a team has deployed too early, and the accidents that will happen with miles because perfection is not a possible goal.

I have often written about the debate between the robotaxi vision of self-driving and the private car sales vision. That debate got writ large last week with the firing of Cruise CEO Dan Ammann over his desire to push the robotaxi vision (and some other differences of view.)

I write about it on Forbes.com in GM CEO Mary Barra fires Cruise CEO over robotaxi/car sales battle

Mercedez-Benz has announced approval of their “Drive Pilot” system, in Germany. Tesla, on the other hand, doesn't do this because of their focus on the far-off goal of a "full" self-driving product. What does a traffic jam pilot really mean, and what could Tesla be doing if they weren't putting so much focus on the still far-off FSD?

I consider this my my new Forbes site article Mercedes Gets Approval For Traffic Jam Pilot, Where Is Tesla?

How can we tell how far along a robotaxi project is? They don't let us look under the hood, so we have to observe their real bets and milestones.

I've made a list of a rough order for the milestones. Most teams have far to go.

See Milestones of a robotaxi business at Forbes.com

In an earlier article, I noted that Cruise, in demonstrating their first robotaxi rides with no safety driver, did all the pick-up an drop-off by just stopping in the lane (late at night.) This is something many Uber drivers do as well, but it's not technically legal. Cruise is doing things one step at a time, but the SF MTA doesn't like that and filed an opposition to them getting a permit to operate the service with the public (currently they just do employees.)

Here's a Forbes.com article on the issues with doing pick-up and drop-off.

I've tended to downplay the early e-VTOL designs that are essentially big multirotor drones for people, including Volocopter. But the reality is that these designs, while losers in the long run, are winning the early race because they can get approved and in the air sooner. Here's an examination of Volocopter and what may happen long term.

Volocopter's simple "drone" design may end up a winner

Posted last week was my Forbes site story on Waymo's no imaging radar. They don't give a lot of details, but I explain what it means:

Waymo uses imaging radar to see through the fog

Two big milestones for Cruise this week, with two stories:

First, they started unmanned operations at night in San Francisco, and give their first taxi ride with no safety driver to founder Kyle Vogt. GM employees are now using Cruise vehicles as taxis.

See Cruise takes robotaxi "Ride #1"

Sometimes people come up to full EV charging stations where cords can reach more than one spot and they unplug an EV that arrived earlier and take over the charger. Sometimes it's evil. Sometimes it's the earlier driver who is bad. How do we make a system to handle the problem?

Read more at Forbes.com in EV Drivers Are Unplugging Other EVs - How Can A System Of Etiquette Arise

Most of the major players want to run a robotaxi business -- Uber style ride service using robocars. Yet some have started to wonder if this is the best business model, or if it's even a good one, while companies invest billions in it.

In this new article on Forbes.com I investigate some of these questions and why the players are investing these sum, and what sort of profits they might make.

A video shows a WeRide safety driver apparently sleeping on the job on Highway 85 in San Jose. After Uber's fatality 3 years ago, are some operators still not monitoring driver attention?

I asked WeRide and learned only part of the answer at WeRide safety driver caught napping -- why is this still happening?

You have probably seen many demonstration videos of self-driving cars navigating the roads with aplomb. They show us a little about what the system can do but as long as they are cherry picked, they don't really tell us how the team is doing.

They could do better if they drive a random road at a pre-announced random time and stream it live, so there can be no cherry picking. Time to start.

The new high end versions of the Lucid Air luxury electric car -- the Grand Touring and Dream -- report a range of over 500 miles from a 113kwh battery. They do this at a high price -- $130K and $170K! What do you really get for 500 miles of range? It's obviously nice, but is it worth it at this high cost?

NHTSA is investigating 12 crashes by Teslas on Autopilot into emergency vehicles on the side of the road. It's also asking the other companies who make products like Autopilot for their statistics. What can be done to prevent these crashes, and are any number of them acceptable? Is Tesla doing things wrong or doing it better than anybody else? We may learn that and the issues are complex.

I discuss them in this new Forbes.com article:

Rounding out my 3 part series on doing a 5,000 mile international road trip in a Tesla, I talk about the times I used slower chargers. The world installed vast numbers of slow chargers at huge expense in a giant waste of money, but they do have virtues on a road trip, and eventually all hotels will have them. On a road trip charge and range become very important and sometimes they save the day.