{"id":1992900,"date":"2023-08-07T07:55:02","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T11:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/san-francisco-drives-tech-will-it-drive-away-robot-taxis\/"},"modified":"2023-08-07T08:00:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T12:00:23","slug":"san-francisco-drives-tech-will-it-drive-away-robot-taxis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/san-francisco-drives-tech-will-it-drive-away-robot-taxis\/","title":{"rendered":"Will San Francisco&#8217;s tech dominance push robot taxis away?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsan-francisco-drives-tech-will-it-drive-away-robot-taxis%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1992900&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>San Francisco: The Battle for Self-Driving Cars<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By Greg \u200cBensinger<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco may be the symbolic capital\u2062 of the tech industry, and the hub of next-generation services like artificial intelligence, but when\u2062 it comes to self-driving cars, city officials are clear: not so fast.<\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1\" style=\"min-width: 320px; min-height: 50px;  text-align: center;\">  \t<script>  \t\tgoogletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1'); });  \t<\/script>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"ad-slot__ad-label\">Advertisement<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>The question comes to a head later this week, when\u200d a \u2064state \u2062agency decides \u200cwhether to allow robot car providers Alphabet Inc\u2019s Waymo and General Motors\u2019 Cruise to expand their for-pay, no-safety-driver services to all of \u200bSan Francisco, day and night.<\/p>\n<p>The\u2063 vote, already delayed twice, will stand as an early test of how to regulate the fledgling industry amid \u2063pushback from safety advocates\u200b and growing urgency from \u2064technologists.<\/p>\n<p>For paid rides, Cruise is limited to the\u200b northwest third of the city, while Waymo cannot yet charge for the rides at\u200c all. Neither \u200cis permitted to have passengers in San Francisco\u2019s downtown financial district. <\/p>\n<p>Leaders of\u2063 the city\u2019s transportation agencies,\u200c fire\u200b department,\u2063 and planning department oppose the rapid expansion, \u200binsisting the vehicles are a\u200c menace, tying up traffic, mucking up emergency services, and driving erratically. The companies say the\u2063 unmanned \u200dvehicles are safer \u2064than \u2064human-driven cars. Both\u2063 sides say they have data to back up their claims.<\/p>\n<p>In June, for instance, the San Francisco \u2064County Transportation Authority released data estimating that Waymo \u200band Cruise vehicles\u2063 were involved in collisions with injuries reported at a rate higher than the national average for \u2064vehicles driven by humans.\u200c State regulators dispute that, saying the data\u200c doesn\u2019t account for incidents\u200c where human-drivers were at fault.\u200b <\/p>\n<p>Futuristic \u2062test vehicles \u200dfrom Cruise and Waymo are a common sight in some parts of San Francisco. Adorned\u2064 with whirling sensors on their \u200droofs and bumpers, the vehicles regularly attract gawking tourists, dazzled \u200bby their empty driver seats and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/san-francisco-drives-tech-will-it-drive-away-robot-taxis\/\" title=\"Will San Francisco's tech dominance push robot taxis away?\">hands-free spinning steering wheels<\/a>. They have also drawn attention for their at-times unpredictable driving patterns, including a slavish obedience to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tesla-recalls-362000-u-s-vehicles-over-full-self-driving-software\/\" title=\"Tesla Recalls 362,000 U.S. Vehicles Over Full Self-Driving Software\">posted speed limits<\/a>, \u200bcircuitous routes \u200band a tendency to stop completely when confronted with unexpected obstacles. <\/p>\n<p>Cruise and Waymo said they have driven 3 million and 1 million miles, respectively, without\u2062 life-threatening \u200dinjuries or fatalities. A Waymo vehicle \u2064struck and killed \u2063a dog in May. <\/p>\n<p>The \u200bAug \u206210 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates autonomous vehicles, \u2063is dividing the city between technologists, lobbyists and citizens hopeful the nascent industry may be a boon for San Francisco, on the one\u200d hand;\u2064 and on the\u2062 other, agencies, safety advocates and \u200dresidents  fear \u200cthe \u2064city is being used as a testing lab for an unproven tech. <\/p>\n<p>The vote comes at a critical time for San Francisco,\u200b which is grappling with thousands of tech job losses, firms leaving the\u2062 city, and COVID-era work-from-home policies that have contributed\u200d to a hollowed out \u200ddowntown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018LITMUS TEST\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOperating robotaxis in SF has become a litmus test for business viability,\u201d posted Cruise CEO\u2063 Kyle Vogt on X, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/roger-stone-announces-he-will-sue-those-who-arrested-him-and-put-him-in-front-of-a-kangaroo-court\/\" title=\"Roger Stone Announces He Will Sue Those Who Arrested Him and Put Him In Front of a Kangaroo Court\">social media site<\/a> formerly known as \u2062Twitter. \u201cIf it can\u2064 work here, there\u2019s little doubt it can work just about\u2063 everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cruise and Waymo have\u2062 in\u2062 recent months expanded to other cities such as Dallas, Miami and Las Vegas \u200cand will need more testing against variables like winter weather, driving\u200d rain and blistering heat, none of which San Francisco can offer. <\/p>\n<p>The companies and others, including\u2063 Ford \u2064and Tesla, have plowed billions of dollars into developing self-driving vehicles but\u200c have failed yet to live up to the\u200b lofty promises \u2062of usurping traditional modes of transportation, and are desperate to find a \u200dsafe and viable\u200c business model.<\/p>\n<p>Safety is the chief concern among San Francisco agencies \u2013 which have virtually no authority\u200b to regulate autonomous vehicles\u200b and point to traffic tie-ups and encounters with emergency services that are social media staples.<\/p>\n<p>The vehicles have been\u2063 observed stopping in the middle of intersections after traffic lights turned red, failing to fully pull over to the curb to let passengers\u200d out, blocking bike lanes and\u200d suddenly changing lanes or failing \u200dto yield to others, among other hiccups.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile San Francisco hopes that \u200dautomated driving will at some point be \u2064safer than human driving, at a \u2064minimum, based on collision records available to the public, within the \u2062complex driving \u200cenvironment of San Francisco city streets, we must conclude that the technology is still under\u200c development and has not reached this goal,\u201d two local transportation agencies and the city\u2019s \u200cplanning commission wrote \u200din a May joint letter to the CPUC.<\/p>\n<p><strong>SAFETY FIRST<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Waymo and Cruise have\u200d both said they\u2064 stand by their safety records and point to a lack of serious accidents over millions of miles \u2063traveled collectively within the city. \u201cHumans are terrible \u2064drivers,\u201d Cruise\u2063 asserted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/amazon-wants-15-federal-minimum-wage-reports-small-businesses-would-be-hardest-hit\/\" title=\"Amazon Wants  Federal Minimum Wage; Reports: Small Businesses Would Be Hardest Hit\">full-page ads<\/a> in a handful of local and national newspapers last month. <\/p>\n<p>Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said the\u200d company hoped for\u200d a \u201cswift resolution\u201d to the CPUC\u2019s \u200cdeliberations and \u200bnoted the \u2064vehicles are\u2063 \u201creducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where we \u2063operate.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Residents also are divided. Mike Smith would like to\u200b see fewer of\u2063 the vehicles on city streets. \u201cThey\u2019re all over \u2064my neighborhood \u2014 they\u2019re everywhere and just \u200cstop randomly on the road and have caused \u200bproblems with emergency services,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>Activists, in\u200d viral videos, have taken to putting orange traffic cones\u200d on the vehicles\u2019 hoods, confusing their\u2063 sensors and causing them \u2062to stop\u2062 until a human removes the cone.<\/p>\n<p>Ram\u00f3n \u2064Iglesias, another San Francisco resident, said that though he\u2019d seen the videos and some erratic \u200dbehavior from the cars, he supports the expansion and\u200c worries any further obstacles could drive tech companies away.\u200c <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a very strong \u2064Luddite \u200csegment here in San Francisco and you \u200csee places like Las Vegas and Miami\u2063 go out of their\u2063 way to embrace tech,\u201d said Iglesias, \u2063a \u200cdata scientist. \u201cWe should\u2062 be\u2063 doing the same.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Mayor London Breed has\u2064 called the city the \u201cAI capital of\u200b the world.\u201d In \u200ca statement regarding autonomous vehicles, a city spokesperson said Breed \u201cgenerally supports the use of this technology,\u201d but \u201cshe remains committed to ensuring the public\u2019s safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cruise, meanwhile, is not sitting idle while the\u2064 CPUC deliberates. On Friday it announced it \u2064was expanding to Los Angeles, where some local\u200b officials also have raised safety concerns. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  (Reporting by Greg Bensinger;\u2063 editing by Peter Henderson and Diane Craft)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/san-francisco-drives-tech\/attachment\/file-photo-a-cruise-self-driving-car-which-is-owned-by-2\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/san-francisco-drives-tech\/attachment\/file-photo-waymo-rider-only-robotaxi-test-ride-in-san-francisco-2\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/san-francisco-drives-tech\/attachment\/file-photo-a-waymo-autonomous-vehicle-formerly-the-google-self-driving\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>This week\u2063 has been filled with major headlines in the U.S. and around the world. One \u200dAmerica\u2019s Rachel Acenas brings us the latest.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>with Tom MacDonald<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>with Gregory Angelo<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>with Anthony Watson<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>By James Pearson and Christopher \u200bBing \u2062LONDON\/WASHINGTON (Reuters) \u2013 An elite\u200c group of North \u2064Korean\u200d hackers secretly breached computer networks at a\u2026 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>By VarunVyas Hebbalalu BENGALURU (Reuters) -Paytm Chairman Vijay Shekhar Sharma will buy a 10.3% stake worth $628 million in the firm he\u2026 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>By Mark John (Reuters) \u2013 If medieval advances in the plough \u2064didn\u2019t lift Europe\u2019s peasants out of poverty, it was largely because\u2026 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>By \u2064Alexander H\u00fcbner BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany\u2019s OHB on Monday said U.S. financial \u200cinvestor KKR was buying a minority\u200c stake in the space\u2026 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Greg Bensinger SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) \u2013 San Francisco, the tech industry&#8217;s symbolic capital, is cautious about self-driving cars. Despite being a hub for AI and next-gen services, city officials are hesitant. The issue will be addressed by a state agency later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1992901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1992900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oann"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1992900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1992901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1992900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1992900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1992900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}