Cruising past the cops… ICYMI: a recent viral video showed one of GM’s Cruise robo-taxis being pulled over by San Francisco police, before it briefly drove off, leaving the officers looking confused. The stop appeared to be for missing headlights. Cruise said the car yielded to police and then drove to the nearest safe location “as intended.” How we got here:
- In February: Cruise rolled out its driverless robo-taxi service to the public in San Francisco. Up until then only employees could use it.
- Last month: Google’s Waymo robo-taxis joined Cruise in SF and Phoenix by offering driverless rides for its employees.
The (driverless) future has arrived... While you weren’t looking — and after years of hype — fully self-driving cars became a reality in the first US cities. Nearly 30 US states have now passed legislation on autonomous driving, with California issuing the first commercial-use permits in 2018. Still, the road ahead for mass public acceptance is long. Voters remain skeptical, with nearly half of Americans saying they’re uncomfortable sharing the road with self-driving cars, and two-thirds saying they wouldn’t get in one.
With great virality comes great responsibility… The Cruise traffic stop was a relatively harmless incident: no one was hurt and the car apparently did what it was programmed to do. But like air travel once was, self-driving tech is dependent on the public believing it’s safe. Uber once had high-flying autonomous ambitions that came to a halt after one of its partially self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian (the car’s “safety driver” was charged with negligent homicide). Now that fully driverless cars are on the road, videos showing them interacting with the real world could become make or break for companies like Cruise and Waymo as they expand.