All posts tagged: Robotaxi

Podcast: Tesla Robotaxi numbers, Ferrari’s controversial Luce launches, Waymo Ojai, and more

Podcast: Tesla Robotaxi numbers, Ferrari’s controversial Luce launches, Waymo Ojai, and more

Published by skeptic

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Tesla’s alarming Robotaxi numbers, Ferrari’s controversial Luce, Waymo Ojai, and more. Today’s episode is sponsored by GM Energy. If you want to experience more resilience and control over your home energy, the GM Energy Home System adds stationary battery power for always-ready backup energy for your home, and the GM Energy PowerBank takes in energy from the grid and stores it for when you need it most. Learn more at gmenergy.gm.com The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. Special: This week, the podcast will start at 3 p.m. ET because Fred is still in Italy after the launch of the Luce. Advertisement – scroll for more content As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the …

Here Comes Ojai, Waymo’s New Chinese-Made Robotaxi

Here Comes Ojai, Waymo’s New Chinese-Made Robotaxi

Published by skeptic

There’s a new autonomous vehicle in town, or at least in the towns of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. Starting today, Alphabet self-driving vehicle developer Waymo will start picking up members of the public in its new Ojai vehicles (pronounced “oh hai”)—pale blue boxy minivans studded with sensors and complete with steering wheels, even though they’re designed to travel without drivers. For now, the rides in these new cars, which can be summoned through Waymo’s app, will be free. It’s been a long road for the vehicle, first announced by Waymo in 2021 and tested on public streets since 2024. It’s also a weird time for Waymo: The self-driving-vehicle company, which is trying to expand quickly across the US and the world, shut down service in six US cities last week due to issues with how its vehicles react to flooding. It has also suspended its highway driving program due to concerns about operations near construction zones. WIRED breaks down what’s new and interesting about Ojai, and the complex system that powers it. Why? …

Inside Waymo’s New Ojai Robotaxi: More Space, Sliding Doors and Smarter AI

Inside Waymo’s New Ojai Robotaxi: More Space, Sliding Doors and Smarter AI

Published by skeptic

Waymo’s self-driving vehicles have been roaming the streets in more than a dozen cities. Now, the company is opening the doors of its newest fleet to select passengers. Called the Ojai (pronounced like “Oh, hi”), the modified Zeekr vehicles are boxier and more spacious than the Jaguar I-Pace that Waymo has been using over the last few years. The Ojai has a flat floor, more legroom and higher ceilings, as well as dual-sliding doors that give you more room when entering and exiting the car. Overall, it feels a lot like a roomy van on the inside. The Ojai is equipped with the sixth-generation Waymo Driver, which is designed to handle harsher weather conditions, including snow — meaning it’ll be easier for Waymo to expand to more cities. The sixth-generation self-driving tech can detect more details and gauge objects in a variety of lighting and weather conditions, according to Waymo. Watch this: Testing Waymo’s Safe Exit Feature in a Self-Driving Taxi 05:29 Fully autonomous rides in the Ojai are opening up starting in San Francisco, Los …

Waymo starts offering rides in new Ojai robotaxi with 6th-gen Driver

Waymo starts offering rides in new Ojai robotaxi with 6th-gen Driver

Published by skeptic

Waymo is beginning to offer select riders trips in its new purpose-built Ojai robotaxi, debuting the company’s 6th-generation Driver hardware across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Trips will be free for a limited time. The Ojai represents a significant step for Waymo, which has now surpassed 20 million fully autonomous trips across 11 cities — a scale that no competitor comes close to matching. Waymo’s purpose-built robotaxi enters service The Ojai is Waymo’s first purpose-built robotaxi — designed from the ground up as a rider-first vehicle rather than a retrofitted consumer car. Built by Zeekr and then outfitted with Waymo’s autonomous driving hardware at the company’s Arizona factory, the van-style vehicle features an expansive cabin with increased legroom, three large adaptive screens for rear passengers, charging ports, and cup holders. Accessibility was clearly a priority. The Ojai features a flat floor and low step-in height for easier entry and exit, braille markings, grab bars, and other features designed for riders with disabilities. One of Waymo’s press images shows a visually impaired rider with a …

Tesla’s own AI trainers don’t trust ‘Full Self-Driving’ or its safety stats, Reuters finds

Tesla’s own AI trainers don’t trust ‘Full Self-Driving’ or its safety stats, Reuters finds

Published by skeptic

A major Reuters investigation published today reveals that Tesla’s widely touted “Full Self-Driving” safety statistics are built on deeply flawed methodology — and that the company’s own data labelers, the workers who train the AI system, don’t trust the technology to drive them. The report, based on interviews with nine former Tesla data labelers, a former self-driving engineer, and 11 traffic-safety researchers, paints a damning picture of the gap between Tesla’s safety marketing and the reality of its autonomous driving program. Tesla’s safety stats inflated by a factor of 3 We’ve been calling out Tesla’s misleading FSD safety claims for a while now, and the Reuters investigation confirms the core problem with hard data. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other executives have repeatedly claimed that “Full Self-Driving” is up to 10 times safer than human drivers. Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja first made this claim last July, and Tesla Board Chair Robyn Denholm repeated it at a November shareholder meeting. Musk himself displayed a chart at that meeting claiming “85% less crashes.” Advertisement – scroll for …

Robotaxi has the wrong momentum, but solar is doing GREAT

Robotaxi has the wrong momentum, but solar is doing GREAT

Published by skeptic

On today’s momentous episode of Quick Charge, we are all about momentum, with solid-state EV batteries gaining ground in China as wind and solar continuing to grow in the US while Tesla’s self-driving Robotaxi fleet, well – doesn’t. After some promising numbers in April, it looks like Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet is shrinking in May, with the overall fleet apparently plummeting into the single digit range if the data is to be believed. We’ve also got a low-cost Chinese EV packing semi solid-state batteries that’s in production TODAY, along with some good news from the wind and solar contingent. Today’s episode is sponsored by GM Energy. If you want to experience more resilience and control over your home energy, the GM Energy Home System adds stationary battery power for always-ready backup energy for your home, and the GM Energy PowerBank takes in energy from the grid and stores it for when you need it most. Learn more at gmenergy.gm.com. Source Links Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS …

TechCrunch Mobility: Robotaxi reality check

TechCrunch Mobility: Robotaxi reality check

Published by skeptic

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Robotaxis are here! And yet, they’re not.  That contradiction neatly captures Waymo’s current reality. Anyone walking around San Francisco could reasonably declare that robotaxis have arrived. But arrival, even at scale, doesn’t guarantee permanence. Such is the dogged threat hanging over every company trying to commercialize autonomous vehicles. Waymo paused operations in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads — and specifically knowing when not to enter them. As I prepared to send this newsletter, we learned the company extended that to Austin and Nashville as well. It’s been a persistent problem for Waymo, which prompted the company to issue a recall last week. In the same week, Waymo halted robotaxi operations on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami as it works to improve performance in …

Waymo pauses robotaxi service in 4 cities as cars drive into floods

Waymo pauses robotaxi service in 4 cities as cars drive into floods

Published by skeptic

Waymo’s autonomous ride-share vehicles are becoming increasingly common across the United States, but they just became much less common in four southern U.S. cities. Waymo has temporarily suspended service in Atlanta, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas due to the risk of inclement weather, after at least one Waymo vehicle was spotted driving headfirst into a flooded street in Atlanta, according to TechCrunch. A photo of the incident circulated on social media, drawing attention to the issue that may have prompted the decision to suspend service as the company figures out how to fix it. Mashable Light Speed SEE ALSO: Can Waymo and Waze fix cities’ potholes? “Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with. During a period of intense rain yesterday in Atlanta, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle encountered a flooded road and stopped,” Waymo said in a statement, per TechCrunch. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Waymo had actually issued a software update to its fleet (numbering nearly 4,000) last …

Tesla Reveals New Details About Robotaxi Crashes—and the Humans Involved

Tesla Reveals New Details About Robotaxi Crashes—and the Humans Involved

Published by skeptic

For more than a year, Tesla has shielded details about its robotaxi crashes from public view. Now, the company has published new details in a federal database about 17 incidents, which took place between July 2025 and March 2026. In at least two of them, Tesla’s human employees appear to have played a hand in the crashes by remotely driving the otherwise autonomous cars into objects on the street. In both crashes, which happened in Austin, “safety monitors” were in the vehicles’ passenger seats to oversee the still-fledgling self-driving tech, and no passengers were riding in the cars. Both crashes occurred at speeds below 10 miles per hour. The new details were first reported by TechCrunch. In one incident, which took place in July 2025, the safety monitor experienced “minor” injuries after a remote worker drove the Tesla up a curb and into a metal fence at 8 mph. The monitor, who had requested help from Tesla’s remote driving team after the car stopped on the side of a street and wouldn’t move forward, was …

Podcast: Tesla Robotaxi numbers, Ferrari’s controversial Luce launches, Waymo Ojai, and more

Podcast: Tesla Robotaxi, Rivian R2 configurator is live, China is taking over EU factories, and more

Published by skeptic

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss updates to Tesla Robotaxi, Rivian R2 configurator going live, China taking over EU factories, and more. Today’s episode is sponsored by GM Energy. If you want to experience more resilience and control over your home energy, the GM Energy Home System adds stationary battery power for always-ready backup energy for your home, and the GM Energy PowerBank takes in energy from the grid and stores it for when you need it most. Learn more at gmenergy.gm.com The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel. As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in. Advertisement – scroll for more content After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps: We now have a Patreon if you …