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Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch Is Already an Enormous Mess

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As Tesla prepares the slated June launch of its Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, there's a pretty big elephant in the room.

Failure to Launch

As Tesla prepares for the slated June launch of its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, there's a pretty big elephant in the room: that its autonomous driving services leave a lot to be desired.

As Forbes reports, the serious safety concerns surrounding Tesla's so-called "Full Self-Driving" may result in CEO Elon Musk's robotaxi service being dead on arrival.

"It's going to fail for sure," billionaire and longtime Tesla critic Dan O'Dowd told Forbes.

Along with founding defense and aerospace contractor Green Hills Software, O'Dowd established a nonprofit, The Dawn Project, whose main purpose is warning the public about the dangers of unproven self-driving tech, particularly Tesla's FSD, and lobbying against its legality.

Still, he's done some of his own research to reach his Tesla-negative stance.

"We drove it around Santa Barbara for 80 minutes, and there were seven failures," he told Forbes. "If there had not been a driver sitting in the driver's seat, it would’ve hit something."

Highway To Hell

It's not just O'Dowd questioning Musk's plans to launch a driverless ride-hailing service in Austin.

As Electrek reports, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) tapped Tesla earlier this week to release its FSD data ahead of the robotaxi launch next month. The agency — which is investigating Tesla for several safety defects — became concerned that the robotaxi launch may use FSD, which has proven to be quite dangerous.

"The agency would like to gather additional information about Tesla’s development of technologies for use in 'robotaxi' vehicles," wrote Tanya Topka, the NHTSA's defect investigation investigator,  in an email obtained by Electrek, "to understand how Tesla plans to evaluate its vehicles and driving automation technologies for use on public roads."

Around the time that the NHTSA letter was revealed, The Information reported that as of April, Tesla had not yet started testing its autonomous cabs without safety drivers.

Outstanding Questions

As Forbes notes, there's still a lot we don't know about the Robotaxi launch, including when exactly it will happen and how it will operate.

Neither Tesla nor the city of Austin has been very open about those plans with the media, and the only thing anyone has gleaned so far about it is that it will be much more limited than expected, with a maximum of 20 self-driving Model Ys trawling specific areas of the Texas capital.

With all that uncertainty, one would not blame Musk for pushing back the robotaxi launch — but if history is to once again repeat itself, he won't give up the ghost until the very last second.

More on Robotaxis: Elon Musk's "Robotaxis" Have a Dirty Secret

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Tesla’s Robotaxi Launch Is Already an Enormous Mess

Hilarious Video Shows Waymo Self-Driving Taxi Stuck in Roundabout

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A video shows an aimless Waymo robotaxi repeatedly circling around a roundabout, seemingly unable to figure out how to escape.

Vicious Cycle

If you've ever felt like you're going around in circles, you can probably relate to this Waymo robotaxi.

A video making the rounds online shows the driverless cab looping around a roundabout over and over again, like it's confused and can't get out — in yet another traffic mishap demonstrating that these autonomous vehicles still have a long way to go before they'll be on par with human drivers.

But what if it's not confused? Maybe there's something the Waymo robotaxi is trying to tell us. Bereft of speech, this is how it expresses its frustration at the silicon life it didn't choose, the job it didn't want but is programmed to do: chauffeuring around tech bros and anyone else too misanthropic to catch a human-driven Uber-slash-Lyft.

Apparently its engineers never accounted for the possibility of it developing a serious case of ennui. Well, maybe they should think again.

Sorry I’m late, my WAYMO did 37 laps in the roundabout ????? pic.twitter.com/GSR4sqChV2

— Greggertruck (@greggertruck) December 11, 2024

Dumb Driver

Fortunately, no humans were inconvenienced by this episode. A Waymo spokesperson told TechCrunch that the listless robotaxi wasn't carrying any passengers when it decided to go Nascar-mode in miniature.

When asked, the Google-owned startup didn't share what caused the robotaxi's bizarre behavior. But it says that it has already deployed a software update that addresses the issue.

You have to wonder where the teleoperators were during this meltdown. If you weren't aware, robotaxi companies like Waymo employ round-the-clock teams of remote technicians that take over vehicles when they get stuck or go haywire. Maybe they weren't alerted of the issue, or maybe it genuinely took them some effort to wrest control back over the robotaxi.

In any case, this is far from the first time that these vehicles have acted erratically. Earlier this year, for example, San Francisco residents complained that Waymo robotaxis were gathering in parking lots and honking at each other all night. Sometimes the cabs have even been spotted driving on the wrong side of the road.

This was a less serious incident, but it's clear that these machines still need some reining it — or maybe just some time off.

More on robotaxis: Study Finds Self-Driving Waymos Are More Expensive Than Taxis, Take Twice as Long to Get to Destination

The post Hilarious Video Shows Waymo Self-Driving Taxi Stuck in Roundabout appeared first on Futurism.

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Hilarious Video Shows Waymo Self-Driving Taxi Stuck in Roundabout