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Waymo shared that it is now providing 500,000 paid robotaxi rides every week. That number is small compared to its human-driven ride-hailing counterparts, like Lyft and Uber. But that’s not what I found most interesting. The pace of growth in rides, new markets, and how it compares to its fleet size is what got my attention. We built a chart (which you can view below) that helps visualize the rapid scale.
That scale, however, does create new challenges, including the inevitably of the robotaxis becoming paralyzed, like so many did during the blackout in California in December. It got us wondering, what happens when a robotaxi gets stuck — and who unsticks it?
Senior reporter Sean O’Kane dug into Waymo’s system (which includes its own roadside assistance team), as well as at least six incidents in which first responders had to step in and manually drive the stuck Waymo. In some cases, robotaxis got stuck in the middle of an emergency: A police officer responding to a mass shooting in Austin earlier this month was diverted to first move a Waymo robotaxi out of the way.
At its core, Sean found that when Waymo’s vehicles get stuck, the company relies on taxpayer-funded public services to move its vehicles for it.
Depending on who you talk to, this is either unacceptable, no big deal, or somewhere in between. In a recent hearing, San Francisco District 4 supervisor Alan Wong said that many of his counterparts agree that “our first responders should not be AAA.”
For those who shrug, I would suggest they think about what’s coming.
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