‘Blanket the city’: CEO says SF can handle 10 times more Cruise driverless vehicles

By Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

Cruise stoped in the middle of the intersection, photo sent from reader

State likely to approve unfettered autonomous vehicle use this week, Cruise is scaling up its fleet — and cops and firefighters grumble..

Until recently, the driverless cars whirring about San Francisco were a novelty. Then they, too, grew ubiquitous. And, soon, they will be beyond ubiquitous. The California Public Utilities Commission is on Thursday scheduled to vote on allowing autonomous vehicle companies to run driverless taxis 24/7/365. That comes on the heels of a meeting today with disgruntled public safety officials.

But cops and firefighters are also disgruntled because, knowing a little something about politics, they foresee the state’s Public Utilities Commission all but certainly voting to give driverless vehicles full and unfettered access to the city — no matter what cops and firefighters say and no matter what they’ve meticulously documented.

That’s where the smart money is. Or at least lots of money — tremendous amounts of money and power are in play. Which would go a long way toward explaining this pending vote…

“How many autonomous vehicles would it take to blanket a city like San Francisco to have a disruptive service similar to Uber?” asked a participant in a July 25 earnings call for General Motors, the parent company of autonomous vehicle outfit Cruise. “Can you do it with under 1,000 to 2,000 Origins?”

“Origins” are Cruise’s large, autonomous, six-passenger vehicles that don’t come equipped with steering wheels or any trappings of human control. They look a bit like rolling shoe boxes — and they’re already here in San Francisco…(more)

REALTED:
Driverless car freezes, forcing drivers into Valencia Street center bike lane

There is a simple solution to the Robotaxi problem and people may already be gearing up to do it. Lots of workers are striking now. Just refuse to use them. The rental bikes and scooters and cars are all on life support now. There is not much room for profit, especially if they swarm the city with large numbers. Who is going to come to their aide when they are hated and despised by emergency responders? My favorite letter against them so far points out the rather obvious problem with a non-human. Humans can communicate with each other. We cannot communicate with a remote human handler. And the remote human handler is not going to be able to handle a lot of problems at one time. Why not just put the human handlers in the vehicle? They can help with luggage and groceries the way a normal taxi would. Details on the hearing here: https://metermadness.wordpress.com/robotaxis/