Coches autónomos

[Cadavre Exquis]

Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC
Posted by BeauHD on Monday July 07, 2025 @07:30PM from the coming-to-a-city-near-you dept.

Waymo has launched new "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York City, "signaling the Alphabet-owned company's interest in expanding into Northeastern cities," reports TechCrunch. While these trips don't guarantee commercial launches, they follow a pattern that previously led to deployments in cities like Los Angeles. Other road trips this year are planned for Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. From the report:

Typically, the trips involve sending a small fleet of human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo's autonomous driving system to map out the new city. Then Waymo tests the vehicles autonomously, though still with a human behind the wheel, before taking any data and learnings back to its engineers to improve the AI driver's performance. In some cases, these road trips have led to commercial launches. In 2023, the company made a road trip to Santa Monica, a city in Los Angeles County. The company now operates a commercial service in Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood.

For its Philadelphia trip, Waymo plans to place vehicles in the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways, according to a spokesperson. She noted folks will see Waymo vehicles driving "at all hours throughout various Philadelphia neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, University City, and as far east as the Delaware River."

In NYC, Waymo will drive its cars manually in Manhattan just north of Central Park down to The Battery and parts of Downtown Brooklyn. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey. Waymo applied last month for a permit to test its AVs in New York City with a human behind the wheel. The company has not yet received approval.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://x.com/Waymo/status/1945106097741664630

Alphabet's Waymo picks up speed as Tesla robotaxi service expands

Abhirup Roy and Akash Sriram · 2025.07.16

Waymo driverless vehicles wait at a traffic light in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

A Waymo rider-only robotaxi is seen during a test ride in San Francisco, California, U.S., December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Paresh Dave

SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 (Reuters) - Alphabet's, opens new tab Waymo robotaxis have driven more than 100 million miles without a human behind the wheel, doubling the mileage in about six months, a top company official said, as it speeds up deployment in U.S. cities amid rising competition.

Rival Tesla, opens new tab is expanding its self-driving taxi service after a small trial with about a dozen of its Model Y SUVs in a limited area of Austin, Texas last month.

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said Tesla will scale up the service rapidly and launch in several U.S. cities by the end of 2025, Waymo has been expanding its service cautiously for years. With about 1,500 vehicles, it is available in San Francisco and some other Bay Area cities, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.

"Reaching 100 million fully autonomous miles represents years of methodical progress now accelerating into rapid, responsible scaling," said Waymo's chief product officer, Saswat Panigrahi.

"As we expand to serve more riders in more cities, we'll encounter new challenges that will continue strengthening our service."

Waymo had logged about 71 million autonomous miles (114.3 million km) as of March, up from 50 million miles at the end of 2024 and 25 million miles through July 2024. It had completed its first million miles in January 2023.

"This type of milestone helps extend Waymo's lead over other self-driving services, because the cumulative experience of those hundred million miles is important," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said.

Waymo's driverless taxi mileage surges in 2025

Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been harder than anticipated with high costs, tight regulations and federal investigations forcing many, including General Motors' (GM.N), opens new tab Cruise, to shut down. Among the few still in the race is Amazon's (AMZN.O), opens new tab Zoox, which is testing a vehicle without manual controls such as a steering wheel and pedals, and plans to launch commercial services in Las Vegas this year.

Until Tesla's robotaxi rollout last month, Waymo was the only U.S. firm to operate driverless taxis with paying passengers.

Waymo, Tesla and Zoox and others have faced federal investigations and recalls following collisions.

Despite multiple traffic problems and driving mistakes as Tesla tiptoed into the robotaxi business after years of missed promises, Musk expanded the service area in Austin and said last week it will roll out services in the San Francisco Bay Area within two months.

Waymo said in March it aims to launch fully autonomous ride-hailing in Washington, D.C. next year. It has also applied for a permit to operate autonomous vehicles in New York, with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan, and said last month it will start by manually driving in the city until it gets the permit.

Robotaxis from Waymo, which started as Google's small self-driving project in 2009 and spun out seven years later, now cover more than two million miles per week autonomously.

As of May, the company has completed more than 10 million autonomous trips, up from 5 million trips at the end of 2024.

Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Richard Chang

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Uber Plans 20,000 Robotaxis in Six-Year Rollout with Lucid and Nuro
Posted by msmash on Thursday July 17, 2025 @10:40AM from the closer-look dept.

Uber said Thursday it will partner with electric vehicle maker Lucid Group and autonomous driving startup Nuro to deploy robotaxis using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro Driver technology on its ride-sharing network. The companies plan to launch the first vehicles in late 2026 in an unidentified major US city and deploy at least 20,000 robotaxis over six years.

Uber will make multi-hundred-million dollar investments in both partners, including $300 million for Lucid to upgrade its assembly line for integrating Nuro hardware into Gravity vehicles.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/motor/noticias/13503386/08/25/espana-acelera-en-la-carrera-por-el-coche-autonomo-a-la-espera-de-cambios-en-la-normativa.html

Saludos.

[pollo]

Waymo Starts Robotaxi Testing In Philadelphia and NYC
Posted by BeauHD on Monday July 07, 2025 @07:30PM from the coming-to-a-city-near-you dept.

Waymo has launched new "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York City, "signaling the Alphabet-owned company's interest in expanding into Northeastern cities," reports TechCrunch. While these trips don't guarantee commercial launches, they follow a pattern that previously led to deployments in cities like Los Angeles. Other road trips this year are planned for Houston, Orlando, Las Vegas, San Diego, and San Antonio. From the report:

Typically, the trips involve sending a small fleet of human-driven vehicles equipped with Waymo's autonomous driving system to map out the new city. Then Waymo tests the vehicles autonomously, though still with a human behind the wheel, before taking any data and learnings back to its engineers to improve the AI driver's performance. In some cases, these road trips have led to commercial launches. In 2023, the company made a road trip to Santa Monica, a city in Los Angeles County. The company now operates a commercial service in Los Angeles, including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood.

For its Philadelphia trip, Waymo plans to place vehicles in the most complex parts of the city, including downtown and freeways, according to a spokesperson. She noted folks will see Waymo vehicles driving "at all hours throughout various Philadelphia neighborhoods, from North Central to Eastwick, University City, and as far east as the Delaware River."

In NYC, Waymo will drive its cars manually in Manhattan just north of Central Park down to The Battery and parts of Downtown Brooklyn. The company will also map parts of Jersey City and Hoboken in New Jersey. Waymo applied last month for a permit to test its AVs in New York City with a human behind the wheel. The company has not yet received approval.

Saludos.

El hecho de que sigan teniendo que tomar de vez en cuando el control remoto del vehículo de vez en cuando (creo que estimaban una media de una vez cada 10 minutos de circulación) da a entender que este sistema tiene lagunas que a pesar de años de testeo y mejoras no se han podido superar. Básicamente lo mismo que los LLM, pero aquí como se puede morir gente o montarse un desaguisado en el tráfico (que de hecho ya ha pasado bastantes veces) tienen que poner sí o sí una persona que corrija.

Hace años que se alcanzó el tope de lo que esta tecnología puede hacer y se cubren las carencias con control remoto de humanos. AI = Actually Indians. Mientras tanto, continúan tirando y engañando a primos con la misma mentira: que el problema de la inteligencia es de una dificultad lineal y que no existen las asíntotas.

Para Waymo no hay mal que por bien no venga, de todas formas, porque significa que tiene una conducción pseudo autónoma que no va a salir al mercado de masas de coches privados, con lo que en la práctica les viene bien por tener un servicio que nadie puede copiarles... directamente.

Eso sí, para lo que es la tecnología de ciencia ficción que prometían (y forrarse indecentemente vendiéndosela a todo el mundo), nada ha cambiado. Al final está por ver si este sistema es escalable financieramente y sale más a cuenta que una flota de taxis ordinarios, de lo cual tengo mis dudas. Especialmente cuando todas las empresas similares entren en masa a hacer exactamente lo mismo. Y estos vehículos y su infraestructura (más teniendo en cuenta que hay que contratar gente) no son nada baratos.

Pasa como la carne artificial, las granjas hidropónicas verticales, las tiendas sin caja de Amazon y demás descubrimientos de América en un vaso de agua, que al final resulta que hacerlo como toda la vida es más rentable y más escalable por motivos bastante obvios.

[pollo]

https://www.eleconomista.es/motor/noticias/13503386/08/25/espana-acelera-en-la-carrera-por-el-coche-autonomo-a-la-espera-de-cambios-en-la-normativa.html

Saludos.

Los "expertos" (que serán vendemotos profesionales) llevan 15 años diciendo exactamente esto mismo. No hay motivos para creerles. De hecho diría que hay menos motivos para creerles que nunca.

Hasta ahora estoy harto de tener razón.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Waymo's Robotaxis Are Coming To London
Posted by BeauHD on Wednesday October 15, 2025 @08:20PM from the European-debut dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:

People in London could be hiring driverless taxis from Waymo next year, after the US autonomous vehicle company announced plans to launch its services there. The UK capital will become the first European city to have an autonomous taxi service of the kind now familiar in San Francisco and four other US cities using Waymo's technology.

The launch pits an innovation sometimes dubbed the "robotaxi" against London's famous black cabs, which can trace their history back to the first horse-drawn hackney coaches of the Tudor era. But a representative of the capital's cab drivers said they were not concerned by the arrival of a "fairground ride" and questioned the reliability of driverless vehicles. Waymo said its cars were now on their way to London and would start driving on the capital's streets in the coming weeks with "trained human specialists," or safety drivers, behind the wheel.

The company, originally formed as a spin-off from Google's self-driving car program, said it would scale up operations and work closely with Transport for London and the Department for Transportto obtain the permits needed to offer fully autonomous rides in 2026. Uber and the UK tech company Wayve have also announced their own plans to trial their driverless taxis in the capital next year, after the British government said it would accelerate rules allowing public trials to take place before legislation enabling self-driving vehicles passes in full.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1980799489389498493

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Society Will Accept a Death Caused By a Robotaxi, Waymo Co-CEO Says
Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @10:10PM from the we'll-see-about-that dept.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said society will ultimately accept a fatal robotaxi crash as part of the broader tradeoff for safer roads overall. TechCrunch reports:

The topic of a fatal robotaxi crash came up during Mawakana's interview with Kristen Korosec, TechCrunch's transportation editor, during the first day of the outlet's annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco. Korosec asked Mawakana about Waymo's ambitions and got answer after answer about the company's all-consuming focus on safety. The most interesting part of the interview arrived when Korosec brought on a thought experiment. What if self-driving vehicles like Waymo and others reduce the number of traffic fatalities in the United States, but a self-driving vehicle does eventually cause a fatal crash, Korosec pondered. Or as she put it to the executive: "Will society accept that? Will society accept a death potentially caused by a robot?"

"I think that society will," Mawakana answered, slowly, before positioning the question as an industrywide issue. "I think the challenge for us is making sure that society has a high enough bar on safety that companies are held to." She said that companies should be transparent about their records by publishing data about how many crashes they're involved in, and she pointed to the "hub" of safety information on Waymo's website. Self-driving cars will dramatically reduce crashes, Mawakana said, but not by 100%: "We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it's not perfection."

Circling back to the idea of a fatal crash, she said, "We really worry as a company about those days. You know, we don't say 'whether.' We say 'when.' And we plan for them." Korosec followed up, asking if there had been safety issues that prompted Waymo to "pump the breaks" on its expansion plans throughout the years. The co-CEO said the company pulls back and retests "all the time," pointing to challenges with blocking emergency vehicles as an example. "We need to make sure that the performance is backing what we're saying we're doing," she said. [...] "If you are not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary in order to actually earn the right to make the roads safer," Mawakana said.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/motor/2025/11/01/6905fb07468aeb78528b4596.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

Waymo To Expand Robotaxi Service To Las Vegas, San Diego and Detroit Next Year
Posted by BeauHD on Monday November 03, 2025 @06:30PM from the autobots-roll-out dept.

In its largest rollout yet, Waymo said it will launch its driverless robotaxi service to Las Vegas, San Diego, and Detroit in 2026. The Alphabet unit will also debut new Zeekr-built vehicles developed with Geely to complement its existing Jaguar I-PACE fleet. Reuters reports:

The new Zeekr model, developed with Chinese automaker Geely, are designed specifically for robotaxi use cases and will be rolled out gradually as the company expands its service. [...] Waymo plans to launch the service in Las Vegas next summer, while in San Diego, it is working with local officials and first responders to secure deployment permits. In Detroit, the company said its winter-weather testing in Michigan's Upper Peninsula has strengthened its ability to operate year-round, where it has long maintained engineering operations.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://x.com/karpathy/status/1988705360723763242

https://x.com/karpathy/status/1989078861800411219

Saludos.

[pollo]

Me toca infinitamente los cojones que esta gente mienta descaradamente y hable como si fuese un problema resuelto.

Si fuese verdad lo que dicen, no tendrían pilotos humanos auxiliares por control remoto, ni escucharíamos las noticias de comportamientos absurdos (tanto individuales como colectivos) de sus vehículos tan inteligentes y tan perfectos.

Y desde luego, cuando hablan de su supuesta utopía no hablan de mierdas como esta, que son las que realmente pasarán y las que realmente me espero de esta gentuza:

Desperate to Stop Waymo's Dead-End Detours, a San Francisco Resident Tried an Orange Cone with a Sign (sfgate.com)
Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday October 19, 2025 @02:19PM from the path-of-enlightenment dept.

"This is an attempt to stop Waymo cars from driving into the dead end," complains a home-made sign in San Francisco, "where they are forced to reverse and adversely affect the lives of the residents."

On an orange traffic post, the home-made sign declares "NO WAYMO — 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m," with an explanation for the rest of the neighborhood. "Waymo comes at all hours of the night and up to 7 times per hour with flashing lights and screaming reverse sounds, waking people up and destroying the quality of life."

SFGate reports that 1,400 people on Reddit upvoted a photo of the sign's text:
It delves into the bureaucratic mess — multiple requests to Waymo, conversations with engineers, and 311 [municipal services] tickets, which had all apparently gone ignored — before finally providing instructions for human drivers. "Please move [the cones] back after you have entered so we can continue to try to block the Waymo cars from entering and disrupting the lives of residents."

This isn't the first time Waymo's autonomous vehicles have disrupted San Francisco residents' peace. Last year, a fleet of the robotaxis created another sleepless fiasco in the city's SoMa neighborhood, honking at each other for hours throughout the night for two and a half weeks.

Other on Reddit shared the concern. "I live at an dead end street in Noe Valley, and these Waymos always stuck there," another commenter posted. "It's been bad for more than a year," agreed another comment. "People on the Internet think you're just a hater but it's a real issue with Waymos."

On Thursday "the sign remained at the corner of Lake Street and Second Avenue," notes SFGate. And yet "something appeared to have shifted. "Waymo vehicles weren't allowing drop-offs or pickups on the street, though whether this was due to the home-printed plea, the cone blockage, or simply updating routes remains unclear."

US Investigates Waymo Robotaxis Over Safety Around School Buses (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday October 21, 2025 @06:40PM from the stop-means-stop dept.

U.S. regulators have opened a new investigation into about 2,000 Waymo self-driving cars after reports that one of the company's robotaxis illegally passed a stopped school bus with flashing lights and children disembarking.

Waymo says it's "already developed and implemented improvements related to stopping for school buses and will land additional software updates in our next software release." The company added "driving safely around children has always been one of Waymo's highest priorities. ... [Waymo] approached the school bus from an angle where the flashing lights and stop sign were not visible and drove slowly around the front of the bus before driving past it, keeping a safe distance from children."

Reuters reports:
NHTSA opened the investigation after a recent media report aired video of an incident in Georgia in which a Waymo did not remain stationary when approaching a school bus with its red lights flashing and stop arm deployed. The report said the Waymo vehicle initially stopped then maneuvered around the bus, passing the extended stop arm while students were disembarking.

Waymo's automated driving system surpassed 100 million miles of driving in July and is logging 2 million miles per week, the agency said. "Based on NHTSA's engagement with Waymo on this incident and the accumulation of operational miles, the likelihood of other prior similar incidents is high," the agency said. NHTSA said the vehicle involved was equipped with Waymo's fifth-generation Automated Driving System and was operating without a human safety driver at the time of the incident.

'No Driver, No Hands, No Clue': Waymo Pulled Over For Illegal U-turn (sfstandard.com)
Posted by msmash on Monday September 29, 2025 @09:40AM from the how-about-that dept.

What's the proper punishment for an illegal U-turn? If you're a human being in California, it's a fine of up to $234. If you're a robot, apparently, it's nothing at all. The San Francisco Standard:
This injustice became apparent to many Facebook users Saturday night after a viral post from the San Bruno Police Department showed footage of officers pulling over a Waymo for the scofflaw maneuver only to discover that no one was behind the wheel.

The car stopped automatically when it saw the police lights during a Friday evening DUI checkpoint, but instead of a person IRL, officers say they were connected with a Waymo rep over the phone. After a brief exchange, the Waymo was sent on its way. Under current law, officials explained, they couldn't issue a ticket. "Our citation books don't have a box for 'robot,'" they joked on Facebook. "Hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves."

Cuando dicen que todo es (y será) perfecto es una puta mentira. La realidad es que escudándose en la apariencia superficial de seguridad, hay un ser humano, esos que son tan nulos según ellos, cuidando que el coche no la cague a lo bestia. Es exactamente igual que en los modelos generativos, esos que salvo para chorradas o casos triviales, no puede uno fiarse de que lo estén haciendo bien porque están basados en putas tiradas de dados que a veces aciertan.

Las "alucinaciones" son un concepto estúpido. No existen alucinaciones en estos modelos. El modelo suelta sus interpolaciones las cuales a veces se parecen a la realidad y a veces no, y a las que no las llaman alucinaciones.

Para poder considerarlos propiamente una alucinación el modelo debería tener un comportamiento basal que fuese siempre correcto y la alucinación sería un estado excepcional e indicativo de avería o funcionamiento incorrecto, como hacemos con la mente humana. En cambio lo asumimos como normal, lo cual ya da una idea de lo fiable que es esto.

Y cuando se llevan cosas por delante, indemnización y a seguir.

Y literalmente no tienen como corregir de forma fiable. No es un programa. No tienen un código en el que puedan decir "esto falla aquí por X, Y o Z". Lo único que pueden hacer es reentrenar el modelo con la esperanza de que no vuelva a cagarla en ese aspecto. Y en mi experiencia, normalmente aflojando en otros conceptos del modelo.

Pero si se ve en los modelos de lenguaje. ¿Cómo puede ser que un modelo con supuestamente acceso a todo el corpus de conocimiento humano escrito, aún no pueda citar leyes con seguridad total y se las invente? ¿Cómo pueden fallar cuestiones triviales sobre por ejemplo deletrear palabras?