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Not even a year after the struggling company fired its founder Travis VanderZanden and replaced him with Shane Torchiana, it appears the company is facing yet another executive shakeup. Torchiana is jumping ship (as many execs at Bird have already done), to be replaced by the company’s rather new CFO. Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. All of this makes it harder to compare the results of the two companies.
Tesla’s latest update takes aim at cold weather woes
Waymo vehicles had two collisions, one of which resulted in an injury. Cruise’s main rival in the robotaxi space, Waymo, didn’t want to comment on the latest CPUC data, but there was still a lot of parse through. This week, both Waymo and Cruise submitted their latest quarterly trip data to the California Public Utilities Commission, and taken together, they show steady progress in the number of miles and passengers served.
Why Robotaxis Can Make Cities Safer
The company's business model—selling cars to end users—puts lidar sensors and high-density maps financially out of reach. Elon Musk has tried to spin this as a positive, calling lidar a "crutch." But the fact remains that almost every other company is using lidar and HD maps because it believes they are helpful. While Waymo still seems to be the technology leader, it hasn't capitalized on its lead as well as many people—apparently including Waymo's own leadership—expected a few years ago.
Waymo And Cruise have Both Hit 1M Miles With No Driver, But Waymo Publishes Detailed Safety Data
Waymo makes a good case that they are not creating undue risk on the roads with their pilot operations, and in fact are reducing it. Cruise does not make this case nearly as well — which is not to say that they are failing at this, but rather that they aren’t being as open on the details. Of course, none of the other companies are engaged in major uncrewed operations, or providing much data on it. In theory, operating with a safety driver should be similar to unmanned operation, except there is nobody to intervene and take the wheel if there is an urgent problem. Both teams have remote operators who can give the car instructions, but they can’t directly drive it nor respond by grabbing the wheel if the car is about to hit something. Safety drivers are trained to intervene any time there is anything concerning, so they often do so when the car would have resolved the matter.
Different business models
Cruise, in particular, was criticized for deploying non-delivery vehicles despite public health orders banning regular autonomous vehicle testing. Cruise said the extra vehicles were needed for R&D support for the delivery operation. Unsurprisingly, there was much less autonomous vehicle testing in California in 2020 compared to years prior. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns forced many AVs off the road in the early part of the year. As such, hitting a cone is a possible indicator the vehicle would hit something else it’s also trying to look for and avoid, such as a concrete bollard, which would cause great damage and be harder to see. But this year, the reports can still serve as a time capsule of a year upended by the coronavirus pandemic.
In January, Cruise unveiled its Origin shuttle, a completely driverless vehicle on which it collaborated with GM and Honda. The Origin should follow a fleet of Cruise vehicles that will use autonomous Chevy Bolt EVs when the ride-hailing service launches. Dozen of companies are testing autonomous technologies on California roadways, but some are racking up lots of miles, while some are barely doing anything at all. And different companies are pursuing different self-driving systems with multiple business models.
Waymo vs. Cruise: Which Robotaxis Crashed More in SF? - The San Francisco Standard
Waymo vs. Cruise: Which Robotaxis Crashed More in SF?.
Posted: Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
As previously mentioned, Waymo’s Bay Area operations are split between paid rides in vehicles with safety drivers (aka “drivered rides”) and unpaid trips in driverless vehicles. Waymo has a list of pre-approved members of the public called “Trusted Testers” who ride in these driverless (or “rider-only”) vehicles that sign non-disclosure agreements to test the company’s early technology. Robotaxis are getting more buzz as the technology advances in fits and starts.
Cruise’s relative ubiquity throughout San Francisco means most riders can get a ride within 10 minutes. Waymo, by comparison, took 20 minutes to arrive at the Safeway on Taraval Street. A Cruise source, meanwhile, pointed out the company's remarkable improvement in the California stats. This is critical, as Cruise intends to launch in San Francisco and has concentrated on dealing with the unique challenges of the urban setting. Cruise is being run by CEO Dan Ammann, who used to be President of GM, alongside CTO and cofounder Kyle Vogt. In Phoenix, where Waymo first launched consumer access, it has about the same number of cars but no waiting list.
You can't get a Waymo to pick you up at San Francisco International Airport, for instance, or take you across the Bay Bridge to Oakland. Which is exactly how I felt after my last trip to San Francisco, when I took several rides in Waymo's robotaxis. Apple, which has been working on its own secretive car project for years, reported driving 18,805 miles, more than doubling its mileage in 2019. The tech giant also reported 130 disengagements, up from 64 the previous year. Waymo only reported 21 disengagements over the course of the year, or a rate of 0.033 disengagements per 1,000 miles.
The traffic cop stopped trying to move us and just held his hands over his head in disgust. Like using it for food delivery — which is happening in Phoenix, via Uber Eats. Maybe it's for people who believe a robot is more reliable than a human driver — at least we know a Waymo won't watch TikTok while driving on the highway like a Lyft driver did when I was in their back seat a couple of years ago. Cruise, a majority owned subsidiary of General Motors and Waymo’s main rival, is also prepping to launch a similar service in the state.
Cruise fires 900 workers, while Waymo pulls out ahead - Electrek
Cruise fires 900 workers, while Waymo pulls out ahead.
Posted: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
A number of companies have been pouring millions of dollars into self-driving technology for years, and many of them have prototype self-driving vehicles that seem to work. We were the first company that openly released our safety framework, the mechanism by which we test the performance of our system and how we determine when we're ready to deploy, three years ago. We were also the first to release all of our collision data from the fully autonomous service… Those were all before any regulator asked us for something. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has twice delayed a scheduled vote for unlimited expansion of Cruise and Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco amid growing opposition from local public officials and a rash of protests. But if you’re truly in a pinch, right now Cruise might offer a faster overall experience.
Between April 2022 and April 2023, the SFMTA collected a total of 261 incidents involving a Cruise vehicle and 85 incidents involving a Waymo vehicle. Those incidents include multiple types of driving behavior, including unexpected stops, erratic driving, issues with pickup and drop-off, and collisions. The state is a hub of tech activity with large concentrations of AV engineers located in and near the Bay Area, making it a natural place for development and testing. It gets tricky, however, once a company wants to deploy commercial operations in California, a state with some of the strictest autonomous vehicle regulation in the country. Waymo and Cruise have defended their safety record and characterize the letters as part of the normal push-and-pull between regulators and the companies they regulate. And as we can see with their quarterly data reports, the vehicles are continuing to roll on, oblivious to the increasing drama.
Cruise’s vehicles only just reached 4 million driverless miles in August, with Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, trailing behind. Human drivers kill one person approximately every 80 million miles or so in San Francisco, so AVs still have more than ten times farther to travel to reach that mark. In January, Waymo reached 1 million miles of public autonomous driving with no human monitor in the vehicle. Waymo had a few years ago announced 6 million miles with safety drivers, but this is a different milestone. With their announcement, however, Waymo has published detailed safety data, including descriptions of all incidents with their vehicles which involved a contact and a number of other statistics. Cruise has declined to provide similar information, though since most of their operations are in San Francisco, many of them have been reported to the California DMV.
Media outlets tend to overhype the numbers in service of a false “race” narrative in which certain companies are outpacing others in miles driven and disengagements. In July, a group of driverless Cruise vehicles blocked traffic for hours after the cars inexplicably stopped working. Meanwhile, a driverless Waymo vehicle created a traffic jam in San Francisco after it stopped in the middle of an intersection earlier this month. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise last December over concerns about the vehicles blocking traffic and causing rear-end collisions with hard braking. In time, robocars will become the best road citizens, and some of the most cooperative. As safety milestones are generated, the next thing that projects will be judged by will be their road citizenship.
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