Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

From a customer's perspective, it isn't clear that a software taxi driver is in any way better than a human taxi driver, particularly with (human) driver assist preventing collisions and all the other warnings provided by a modern car.

In both cases someone else is driving for the customer. With a human driver (plus driver assist braking and collision warnings) you have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth driving. With a robotaxi you have something inferior. But maybe it's a lot cheaper, right?

The robotaxi can only compete on price because that's its only advantage.

If you own a car that drives itself, that's a different story. Everybody can see the value proposition.

We would have to look at the cost of the hardware and maintenance and fallback remote operators and the R&D investment to evaluate whether a robotaxi fleet is indeed cheaper. How much cheaper is it, exactly? 5%? 10%? 15%?

Would you pay a little more to have the most flexible, sophisticated intelligence on Earth (human brain + driver assist) or would you want to save a few dollars and risk having some dumb piece of software strand you in the middle of the road somewhere?

We all use Google Maps or Apple Maps when driving and most of us have seen these systems do boneheaded things. Just imagine the dumb things a robotaxi could do.

It's hard for a normal person to be excited about this. I don't know a single person who is excited by robotaxis.

It's because the commenter's solution to the problems of waste, noise, pollution, obesity, and people dying and getting maimed through traffic violence, is, essentially, the removal of a technological layer. Driverless cars, in opposition, is the addition of a technological layer.

We are all modernists now. Essentially, this means that we perceive technology in itself as a value. The primary value is not the end goal, say, for example, a healthy urban environment. No, instead, living in a sci-fi future with robotic vehicles is a value, because it is technologically more advanced than a future without that. In modernism, it's a sickness of the mind really, a solution cannot be imagined, unless it involves technological mediation. This has been the curse of human civilization for a good 100 years now.

Anyways, I don't think research in driverless cars is wasted. They are better than the current state of affairs. They can only be a marginal improvement though, they are not a paradigm shift.

With all of the talk, usually around Teslas but I suppose it applies to all EVs, that I've seen over the years akin to, "Just imagine how safe driving will be when every vehicle is FSD and can talk to one another," I have to ask... shouldn't we anticipate seeing similar issues to this in that scenario?

I mean yeah, there will be different manufacturers so it's not like every car in a city could come to a standstill. And I'm also speaking from a place of ignorance, so please correct me if I'm off-base. But isn't this kind of a thing (mass stoppages of entire fleets) a cause for concern as we see increased FSD adoption?

Sorry you're being downvoted. I agree with you.

It seems so inefficient to me to be putting resources into self-driving cars.

From the point of view of the commuter, a bus or train is "self driving" since the commuter is free to read, work on their laptop, etc. while on a bus/train. We've had that tech for a few hundred years, it is vastly more efficient not only in fuel consumption but cost as well. We should use it more.

I understand why people in most of the U.S. are reticent to use public transportation though, without descending into listing off the litany of reasons, I will say though that I believe those issues are all fairly easy to solve (to be sure, some issues require a hefty expenditure of capital). And I am a hypocrite — I too have a list of reasons that I dislike the public transportation (such as it is) that is available to me in a mid-size U.S. city and do not use it. (Christ, I miss Tokyo though.)

I am hesitant to judge, but to me the idea of a "personal chauffeur" (self-driving car) in lieu of pushing for more public transportation is somewhat gross.

They have it rough in Tokyo — you would hate it there.