Autonomous vehicles have great potential. As long as you program them correctly, they will not speed, break traffic laws, and not be drunk, drunk, abusive, or violent. And the technology is becoming much more capable, albeit with less hype, taking some of the companies concerned with it. Waymo is still easily the leader in this field and already operates commercially in six cities across the US, with a dozen more (in addition to London) soon to follow. WeMos can also drop you off and pick you up at the airports in Phoenix and San Francisco.
Soon, Waymo will begin deploying its sixth-generation Waymo Driver, using the upgraded Zeeker Ojai minivans, adding the Jaguar I-Pace that have become so common on San Francisco streets and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric vehicles to the fleet. It has upgraded cameras, lidar and radar, meaning cars can better understand their environments at night and in bad weather. There are even microphones that can make siren-like sounds to better inform robotaxi which direction emergency vehicles are coming from.
But despite all these advancements, since the pod-like two-seater that is older than the Waymo name, there are still some things that are beyond the capabilities of a robotaxi. Like someone is closing the door and a passenger has left it open while going out. All the sophisticated sensors and high-powered computer processing in the world are useless if the car can’t move until the door is closed and there’s no one to help it.
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