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Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Tesla Robotaxi pulls ahead of Waymo in San Francisco
Tesla (TSLA) may have started the robotaxi race running behind Waymo, but it has taken the lead in the pair's hometown of San Francisco. Silicon Valley, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the home of both Tesla and Waymo, as well as Waymo's parent company, Alphabet. After years of beta testing in the city, Waymo finally made Waymo One (think Uber, but for autonomous vehicles) available to the public in June 2024. Related: Alphabet's Waymo flexes on Tesla Robotaxi with latest update Waymo had nearly 300,000 signups at launch, which has only grown since. As of July 2025, Waymo One is available 24/7 to customers in Los Angeles, Phoenix, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area. Waymo partners with Uber in Austin and Atlanta. Waymo also says it has plans to expand to Miami and Washington, D.C., in 2026. It has been testing in Miami in since December. Waymo's current fleet features over 1,500 vehicles spread across its four current host cities, but by next year, it expects to more than double its fleet with more than 2,000 new additions. Meanwhile, Tesla just launched in Austin in June. But on Thursday, July 31, Tesla officially launched Robotaxi in San Francisco. San Franciscans can hail Robotaxis through the app, but just like the service in Austin, there is a human "safety monitor" in the passenger seat making sure everything is working properly. Thanks to the months of safe testing, Waymo One users in San Francisco get the added privacy of having a truly autonomous riding experience without another human present. But while Tesla is behind in some areas, it's starting off life in the Bay Area with a huge advantage over Waymo. A user on X (the former Twitter) and Tesla enthusast @JoeTegtmeyer posted a map with the Tesla Robotaxi's coverage area overlaid on Waymo's. It doesn't take a cartogropher to see which company has the advantage. So even though Tesla Robotaxi is months behind Waymo One and still needs human training wheels, the Robotaxi has a lot more space to roam in the Bay Area. Earlier this year, Tesla said that its FSD system has driven a cumulative total of 3.6 billion miles, nearly triple the 1.3 billion cumulative miles it reported a year ago. More Tesla Robotaxi Tesla's newest Robotaxi rival has experence and deep pocketsTesla robotaxi safety called into question after frightening videoTeslas faces its most serious court battle in years But according to Musk, the FSD in regular Tesla vehicles is a lower grade than the technology Robotaxi uses. So this more advanced technology has a long way to go to catch up to the real-world traffic miles Waymo has driven. While Tesla Robotaxi is just getting off the ground in Austin and San Francisco, Alphabet's Waymo has been testing its cars on U.S. streets since at least 2018. Since then, Waymo robotaxis have driven more than 100 million miles autonomously, doubling its mileage from just six months ago, according to a company update. "Reaching 100 million fully autonomous miles represents years of methodical progress now accelerating into rapid, responsible scaling," said Waymo Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi. "As we expand to serve more riders in more cities, we'll encounter new challenges that will continue strengthening our service." Waymo had reported traveling 71 million miles autonomously in March, after reaching 50 million at the end of the year. In May, Waymo said its Waymo One app registers over a quarter of a million paid weekly trips across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Related: Tesla fans flock to social media to celebrate Robotaxi launch The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
New York Post
11 hours ago
- New York Post
Uber says over 100 sexual assault accusers submitted fake receipts
Uber said it found more than 100 instances in which passengers who claimed its drivers sexually assaulted or harassed them offered bogus or doctored receipts to prove ridership, or did not explain their inability to provide receipts. In a Wednesday court filing, Uber urged US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco to order 21 plaintiffs with suspect receipts to justify why their claims should not be dismissed, and 90 plaintiffs to provide receipts or 'non-boilerplate' reasons for their absence. At least 11 law firms represent the various plaintiffs, court papers show. Those firms had no immediate comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. They were not accused of wrongdoing. Advertisement Uber said it found more than 100 instances in which passengers who claimed its drivers sexually assaulted or harassed them offered bogus or doctored receipts to prove ridership Christopher Sadowski Uber is trying to reduce its liability in nationwide federal litigation comprising more than 2,450 lawsuits alleging driver misconduct. It faces several hundred additional lawsuits in San Francisco Superior Court. The San Francisco-based company has maintained it should not be liable for criminal conduct by drivers it connects with passengers, and that its background checks and disclosures were sufficient. Advertisement On July 8, Breyer dismissed some fraud and liability claims that were based on ads promoting Uber's ride-sharing service as a safe alternative to drunk driving. In Wednesday's filing, Uber said some fake receipts appear to have been generated through third-party websites. In Wednesday's filing, Uber said some fake receipts appear to have been generated through third-party websites. thanakorn – Uber said some receipts contained math errors or bogus surcharges, changed female driver names to male names, were timestamped before rides occurred, had stray marks, or used formatting that does not match its own. Advertisement One plaintiff submitted two receipts for a single ride, while two plaintiffs submitted different versions of the same receipt, the company said. 'Nothing is more critical to the integrity of our judicial system than honesty,' Uber said. 'It is difficult to conceive an act of misconduct graver than the outright fabrication of evidence that plaintiffs here undertook.' The case is In re Uber Technologies Inc Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 23-03084.
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Forbes
First Tesla Robotaxi Rides In California May Risk DMV Shutdown
Tesla has begin limited operation of a ride service in the San Francisco Bay Area. The first video by a passenger shows that it is running a similar software system to the one used in Austin TX, with a safety driver, in this case located behind the wheel rather than in the passenger seat. While the saftey driver keeps hands on the wheel, as recommended with Tesla's consumer version of FSD, in this ride they do not appear to control the vehicle, and it drives the trips, including pick-up and drop-off, without input from the Tesla employee. The problem is, this sort of more fully automated ride may run afoul of more subtle complexities in California self-driving vehicle regulations which led to the DMV shutting down testing by Uber's self-driving research unit ATG several years ago. Tesla is using a carve-out in the California laws which state that they do not cover 'driver assist' tools, sometimes referred to as 'Level 2' in specifications from NHTSA and the Society of Automotive Engineers. The California regulations require a large set of permits from both the DMV and the public utilities commission to operate a taxi service based on self-driving vehicles. Seven different permits are needed, and Tesla has only 2 and has not applied for the others. By declaring to the DMV that this is not a self-driving car, but rather a driver assist car that requires a human driver behind the wheel and in control, they hope to bypass the need for those permits. The line, however, between Tesla FSD, which is indeed correctly sold as a driver-assist system and this 'robotaxi' version is challenging. Just when does a system switch from being driver-assist to prototype self-driving? For now, the DMV is accepting that and stated: The Regulations and Driver Assist In 2011-12, I participated in the drafting of the first drafting of the nation's first laws regulating self-driving in Nevada and California. The first laws only enabled testing, and were prompted by Google, the only company trying to do tests. Representatives from big automakers quickly joined the discussions, and they were concerned that these regulations might interfere with some of the systems they sold, such as adaptive cruise controls, and lanekeeping systems, which are known as 'driver assist' tools because a human driver is responsible for the vehicle, and the system only assists. They got the carve-out they wanted. In 2016, Uber was developing self-driving at its ill-fated 'ATG' division. The head of the division, Anthony Levandowski, who had represented Google in the drafting of these laws, began testing their vehicles on California roads. He declared that because the vehicles had a human safety driver on board, they were driver assist, and Uber didn't need a self-driving testing permit. The DMV would have none of it, and threatened Uber with pulling its vehicles from the roads, cancelling their licence plates. Uber complied and got the testing permits. Later, Uber ATG would have a fatal crash. It shut down operations and the team was purchased by Aurora. (Aurora just announced this week that they have begun 'driverless' trucking at night in Texas, though also with an employee behind the wheel.) The DMV has not had enough time to look at the new service that Tesla has deployed. The Tesla robotaxi stack definitely tries to perform the complete robotaxi task, including pick-up and drop-off. It is not ready from a safety standpoint. Other data suggests the Tesla FSD system needs human intervention around every 400 miles, Tesla has said they now have reached near 10,000 miles, but their operations in Austin suggest otherwise. Either way, to make a working robotaxi requires needing a serious intervention every million miles or so to meet Musk's stated goal of 'much safer than a human' and so Tesla still has very far to go and the safety driver is needed. At the same time, Uber ATG was very, very, very far behind this quality level. At the time of their fatality they needed safety driver takeover about every 15 miles. Because their safety driver disregarded her job and watched a video instead of the road, the vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian. Uber ATG never took passengers, so their vehicle also was not capable of doing the things like summoning, pick-up and drop-off that the Tesla vehicle does. It seems very unlikely that an analysis of the Tesla Robotaxi system in comparison to the Uber ATG system would class the Tesla system as less of a prototype self-driving system. Except for one strange irony. DMV Lawsuit Over FSD Name The DMV is currently in court suing to remove Tesla from the roads in general for deceptive labeling, but in the opposite direction. Tesla calls its consumer product 'Full Self Driving (Supervised)' and formerly called it 'Beta.' The DMV has been declaring that Tesla's system is not self-driving (and indeed it isn't) and that they should not be using a name that suggests it is. Tesla robotaxi isn't self-driving either, but like Uber ATG's system, it definitely is intended to be. Uber ATG was made to get the permits because they were trying to build a robotaxi, even though it wasn't ready yet. Tesla is very explicitly calling their system a robotaxi, though it also isn't ready yet. The DMV will have to make a decision and possibly alter its policies. Product Quality At present the service seems very limited. The influencer who got the early ride above got the same car every time he asked for a ride, and appeared to be followed by a Cybertruck chase car, so it was carefully monitored. However, there's no reason Tesla can't put this into operation with a safety driver. Indeed, it's no surprise that Tesla could immediately allow a larger service area than Waymo does for their actual self-driving robotaxi service. Tesla FSD with a supervisor is reasonably safe over most roads in the USA. Other than logistic costs they could offer a service anywhere, though of course it costs as much as a limo service to operate and so is not commercially interesting. You can, and other companies have, offered test robotaxi services with safety drivers even though the robotaxi software still needs 100x or 1,000x improvement in quality in order to work. While Perhaps it only needs a 2x improvement and is thus 'almost ready' it is not easy for outsiders to judge this quality, you need statistics over large nubmers of miles, which Tesla does not release. The robotaxi system, which has been seen in Austin, has added impressive capabilities above the point to point driving abilities that Tesla FSD has shown for some time. Most notably it is doing pick-up and drop-off on aribitrary curbsides, which took many teams some effort to develop, though again, they made it work without a safety driver, which is vastly harder. In pondering why Tesla has released this service, this may be the main reason--it already has been doing lots of testing of the FSD driving system, including in the Bay Area (the rider's route included Tesla HQ after all.) It is the PuDo (Pick-up/Drop-off) which is new and needs testing.
