highways

Enterprise, Transportation

Waymo to Begin Trial of Robotaxis on Phoenix Highways

Waymo is about to start testing its driverless passenger vehicles on the highway later this month, a critical milestone for the company that, if successful, will unlock expanded commercial operations. Bringing its autonomous cars to the highway is just the latest in a series of big steps for Waymo, especially in the Phoenix area. Just a few months before that, Waymo made its autonomous vehicles available in the Uber app. The GM autonomous vehicle subsidiary recently slashed a quarter of its staff and pushed out a number of executives after a crash in October where one of its robotaxis dragged a pedestrian. Last year, the company backed away from its autonomous trucking effort in order to focus more on ride-hailing.

Zara Khan
January 8, 2024

Tesla’s Autopilot Recall Fix Deemed Inadequate by Consumer Reports

Tesla’s fix for its Autopilot recall of more than 2 million vehicles is being called “insufficient” by Consumer Reports, following preliminary tests. While the testing isn’t comprehensive, it shows questions remain unanswered about Tesla’s approach to driver monitoring — the tech at the heart of the recall. It focused heavily on the Autosteer feature, which is designed to keep a car centered in a lane on controlled-access highways, even around curves. But NHTSA said in documents released last week that it viewed those checks as “insufficient to prevent misuse.”Tesla does not restrict the use of Autosteer to controlled-access highways, though. “None of this is very prescriptive or explicit in terms of what it is they’re going to [change],” Funkhouser says.