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Autonomous Cars

Self-driving cars are finally here, and how they are deployed will change how we get around forever. From Tesla to Google to Uber to all the major automakers, we bring you complete coverage of the race to develop fully autonomous vehicles. This includes helpful explanations about the technology and policies that underpin the movement to build driverless cars.

The Zoox come out at night.

Amazon’s robotaxi company is expanding its operating conditions in the two cities where it has been testing its autonomous vehicles, Foster City and Las Vegas. The robotaxis will start driving at night, as well as in light rain and damp road conditions. They will also starting driving at speeds of up to 45 mph on multi-lane roads. And in Las Vegas, it will start tackling roads along the south end of the Strip. Zoox’s purpose-built AVs (no steering wheel, no pedals) will start accepting real passengers later this year.


Zoox robotaxi at night
Gadzooks! It’s a Zoox at night!
Image: Zoox
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Waymo opens up in LA.

The robotaxi company is ready to start inviting regular people on its waitlist (50,000 and counting) to use its fully driverless vehicles. The vehicles will only operate in a 63 square-mile section that includes Santa Monica and DTLA. And while the initial rides will be free, future rides will not — thanks to a recent thumbs-up from regulators.

The company plans to follow similar rollout in Austin, Texas, “later this year.” The future of autonomous vehicles still seems super cloudy, but Waymo is trying its best to prove the doubters wrong.


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Was the Apple Car always going to be a van?

Mark Gurman collected many of the concepts the company considered for its recently shuttered Project Titan in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today.

It’s a concise summary of Apple’s design thoughts over the ten years it devoted to trying to enter the automotive industry. Gurman writes of one idea:

The Apple car’s circa-2020 design resembled the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle — a futuristic van with rounded edges — but it had dark black windows with an adjustable tint. There was all-glass sunroof, a pure white exterior and whitewall tires with a black center.


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Waymo goes fully driverless in Austin.

Just in time for SXSW! But alas, the descending tech bros won’t get a chance to take selfies in the backseat of Google’s robotaxis this time around. The driverless cars will only be available to Waymo employees until the company feels confident enough to open it up to the public.


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Behind the Apple Car boondoggle.

This NYT dive into Apple’s doomed project shows leadership changes switched focus between autonomy and EVs (and back again) and explains Cook greenlit the project partly to prevent an “exodus” of engineers to Tesla.

It also describes a Humane-like 2015 concept demo with Jony Ive and Tim Cook pretending to ride in a car while a voice actor read off things Siri might say about restaurants they imagined passing. And that tech could live on — as part of research into “A.I.-powered AirPods with cameras, robot assistants and augmented reality”


RIP to the Apple Car, we hardly knew ye

Apple’s decision to kill its secretive car project is a reflection of the harsh reality confronting electric and autonomous vehicles across the globe.

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Cruise is putting drivers into its robotaxis to resume services.

Bloomberg reports that Cruise is preparing to resume service on public roads “in the coming weeks” — possibly in Houston and Dallas, where the company previously operated — but with safety drivers in the seats. Service was suspended in October after one of its autonomous cars struck and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.

Cruise spokesman Pat Morrissey said in a statement:

“We have not set a timeline for deployment. Our goal is to relaunch in one city with manually driven vehicles and supervised testing as soon as possible once we have taken steps to rebuild trust with regulators and the public. We are in the process of meeting with officials in select markets to gather information, share updates and rebuild trust.”

Since the SF incident, Cruise’s license to operate in California was suspended, several top executives have left, and the company has let go almost a quarter of its workforce.


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Cruise finally has a chief safety officer.

Steve Kenner has held safety-related positions at Apple and Uber, as well as autonomous vehicle companies like Aurora, Kodiak Robotics, and Locomation. He’ll be in charge of making sure Cruise adheres to safety standards as it seeks to re-deploy its robotaxis in San Francisco and beyond. The GM-owned company is trying to rebuild its reputation — and get back its operations permit — in the wake of an incident in which a pedestrian was stuck and dragged by one of its autonomous vehicles.


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Apple tested its self-driving car tech more than ever last year.

The company logged over 450,000 miles of autonomous driving in California from December 2022 to November 2023, according to reporting from the state’s DMV. As Wired notes, that’s nothing compared to the millions of miles of testing notched by other companies.

But it’s almost four times what Apple did the previous year, showing there’s actual work being done on the long-rumored car project, even as Apple lowers its expectations.


This timeline from the Cruise pedestrian-dragging incident investigation is fascinating — and gruesome.

According to the report, Cruise dispatched a team of contractors to the scene within 45 minutes of the crash to take pictures and video of the aftermath, some of which included “blood and skin patches on the ground.” What a job that must be!


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The future of work is photographing the bloody aftermath of robot car crashes.
Screenshot: Quinn Emanuel
These self-driving trucks are getting smart tires.

Gatik’s autonomous box trucks are going to be the first AVs on the road to roll on Goodyear’s ultra-intelligent data-collecting tires. Using its proprietary Sightline tech, the tires can measure their own air pressure, the amount of friction between the rubber and the road surface, the amount of tread that’s left, and the temperature of the air around the tire. This should help improve safety and efficiency, the companies claim.


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Smart tires are where the rubber meets the road.
Image: Gatik
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GM and SF are now in a legal battle over a $108 million tax bill.

General Motors filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco last week, accusing it of unfairly taxing it $108 million over a period of seven years, reports Bloomberg.

San Francisco is where GM’s robotaxi arm Cruise was founded, and where the horrific dragging accident happened ahead of a full shutdown, executive exodus, and layoffs. The city allegedly tied the tax bill to GM’s global revenue of $3 billion — instead of the much more humble figure generated by Cruise.


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Cruise AV confirms nine leaders dismissed as its safety investigation continues.

Reuters reports GM-backed robotaxi startup Cruise told employees:

Following an initial analysis of the October 2 incident and Cruise’s response to it, nine individuals departed Cruise... we believe that new leadership is necessary to achieve these goals.

CEO Kyle Vogt already resigned, and now we know COO Gil West, policy officer Jeff Bleich and government affairs SVP David Estrada are also out.

Cruise was "days away" from green lighting robotaxis without a steering wheel in September. But after one of its cars struck and then dragged a woman in October, things have gone downhill. Now the industry wants help from Pete Buttigieg.


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Tesla Autopilot has a responsibility vacuum.

A pair of stories in The Washington Post today highlighted how little seems to stop Tesla drivers from ignoring company guidance about where and how to use Autopilot. It’s resulted in years of fatal crashes, court cases, scoldings, and investigations, but no impactful regulation.

As some drivers choose to use Autopilot where they shouldn’t, they wait for Full Self Driving, which Musk has promised for years, but Tesla has never delivered on.


Where are all the robot trucks?

The promised wave of autonomous big rigs never materialized. But 2024 could prove to be a pivotal year for the technology.