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Axios
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Axios
Tesla's robotaxi plan attracts federal safety scrutiny
Public trust in self-driving vehicles is critical, but without federal standards, companies in the sector get to decide what to share about the safety of their technology, with varying levels of transparency. As Tesla gears up to launch robotaxis next month in Austin, Texas, there are still plenty of outstanding questions. Why it matters: Even if you're personally not ready to ride in the back seat of a robotaxi, everyone will be sharing the road with them soon enough. People want assurances that cars with no one behind the wheel will behave predictably and safely. The big picture: AV companies use various tactics to build public trust. Months before launching the first driverless semi-trucks in Texas last month, Aurora Innovation shared details of its safety case framework. Gatik enlisted a third-party auditor to validate safety claims about its automated trucks and named an independent safety advisory council. Waymo regularly releases independent, peer-reviewed research analyzing the safety of its robotaxis. Tesla's website shares safety performance data about its assisted-driving system, but as with most companies, the data is selective, safety experts say. "There are different degrees of transparency, but as a professor, I would never give anyone higher than a C," said Missy Cummings, director of George Mason University's Autonomy and Robotics Center and a former official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Driving the news: Tesla CEO Elon Musk told CNBC Tuesday the company is on track to launch a modest fleet of 10 or 12 robotaxis in Austin next month. "We will have to see how well it does. But I think it's prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well, and then scale it up proportionate to how well we see it's doing," Musk said. By the end of 2026, Musk said he expects one million self-driving Teslas, whose owners could choose to add them to the robotaxi network to earn money when not in use. Yes, but: Some AV experts question whether Tesla's system — which relies on AI and a handful of inexpensive cameras, rather than a suite of redundant sensors — will be able to handle unexpected situations. NHTSA is already investigating collisions involving Tesla's current assisted-driving technology (called FSD Supervised, short for "full self-driving"), to determine if the system can get blinded by sun glare, fog or airborne dust. That tech is the foundation for its future driverless system, Tesla says. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Zoom in: In a letter earlier this month, Tanya Topka, the director of NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, demanded Tesla share more details about its plans, so the agency can understand how its fully driverless robotaxis will compare to the driver-assistance products available on Tesla vehicles today. NHTSA wants to know, for example, how the vehicles will be monitored in real time, whether they can be remotely "tele-operated" by Tesla staff in case they get stuck and how robotaxis will respond to emergency vehicles. Where it stands: Tesla says it is still working through a "big list of issues" to reduce the number of times backup safety drivers have to take control of the wheel during pre-launch testing. "We are aware of the interventions that are that's why we are hardcore burning it down," Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's director of Autopilot software, told investors on an April 22 earnings call. Musk told CNBC Tuesday that remote monitors will be "extremely paranoid" in their oversight, but stopped short of confirming whether they will be capable of taking control of vehicles remotely. Waymo has a remote response team to guide its robotaxis through decision-making when necessary, but they do not operate the vehicle from afar. What to watch: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CNBC the AV industry needs to be more transparent. "We don't want to punish them. We want to give them better rules." The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association — of which Tesla is not a member — wants federal guidelines for autonomous vehicles, and is also calling for a national safety data repository on crashes involving self-driving cars.
Digital Trends
06-05-2025
- Automotive
- Digital Trends
Waymo lays groundwork for robotaxi revolution
In recent years, Waymo has been edging toward its long-held goal of revolutionizing urban transportation by deploying a fully autonomous, scalable, and sustainable ride-hailing service. The Alphabet-owned company has just taken another step in that direction with the opening of a new vehicle factory in Metro Phoenix, Arizona, in partnership with automaker Magna. Recommended Videos The new 239,000-square-foot site will build thousands of Jaguar I-PACEs equipped with Waymo's fully autonomous technology, Waymo said in a post on its website on Monday. The company said that it now has more than 1,500 autonomous vehicles operating across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, providing more than 250,000 paid trips to users. Waymo also has plans to launch its service in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. next year. Those new cities will likely get many of the more than 2,000 fully autonomous I-PACE vehicles that come off the production line in 2026. 'We're proud to bring this technology — once thought to be the stuff of science fiction — to more and more riders across this country,' Waymo said. Alphabet boss Sundar Pichai recently suggested that it was considering offering its autonomous vehicles for personal ownership, and also discussing the idea with Toyota, though with regulatory hurdles still high for fully driverless vehicles, such a scenario is likely to be a ways off. Waymo appears to be performing well in what is a highly competitive sector. A number of rivals — General Motors-owned Cruise and Ford/VW-backed Argo AI among them — have found the endeavor of building out the technology and related services a challenge too far, forcing their closures in 2024 and 2022, respectively. But it hasn't all been smooth sailing for Waymo, either, with various technology-related incidents on public roads prompting increased scrutiny from regulators. While many studies have suggested that Waymo's autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers, recent research by Professor Missy Cummings, director of George Mason University's Autonomy and Robotics Center, found that while Waymo performs better than human rideshare drivers, its crash rate — about 1,000 per 100 million miles — is still worse than the average human driver. However, Cummings emphasized that comparing autonomous-vehicle safety to human drivers is scientifically problematic because humans collectively drive trillions of miles annually, while driverless cars have only logged tens of millions, making current comparisons statistically invalid. Autonomous-car technology has made astonishing improvements in recent years, but its limited ability to handle all types of traffic scenarios and weather conditions means it will likely be some time before regulators grant companies like Waymo broader operational freedoms. Please enable Javascript to view this content
