Turns Out, Robotaxis Are A Bit Crap
So, why are they being pushed so hard?
Self-driving AI robotaxis are meant to be our utopian future. A cheap, easy, fast, and private way to travel that could render the personal automobile a thing of the past. Well, at least, that is the lie that has been fed to us. A recent pilot study found that this technology is way off the mark and falls short of human-driven taxis on every metric. This, combined with recent revelations that AI is facing a cost and development crisis, paints a grim future for this technology. So, why are robotaxis still being so heavily pushed? Well, the answer is a little disturbing.
This study was conducted by Forbes. They compared Waymo self-driving robotaxis to ride-sharing services like UberX and Lyft over 50 different trips at different times of day in Los Angeles. Their findings were damning. On average, the Waymo vehicle’s trip time was 120% longer than the ride-share services, which is over twice as long! Not only that, these robotaxi trips also cost, on average, 30% more. So, even if you take into account tipping the ride-share driver, the Waymo was still more expensive despite massively inconveniencing the customer by taking so long.
While the Forbes study didn’t cover this factor, the quality of Waymo’s rides is widely reported to not be very good either, with allegations…
