recently announced their driverless fleets each have covered more than 1 million miles without a major accident. But their robotaxis also have experienced nagging problems in San Francisco that have caused traffic headaches and other nuisances that threaten to inconvenience people or, worse, block emergency vehicles rushing to a fire or other urgent calls for help.
The investments so far have produced a mixed bag of successes, flops and hyperbole from the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whothat the electric automaker would be running a huge robotaxi service by the end of 2020 but still hasn't come close to realizing that ambition. Within the past year, driverless Cruise vehicles have also obstructed firefighters rushing to a three-alarm fire and or illegally entered into areas where there were ongoing efforts to douse a fire, according to the authority, which is asking regulators to hold off on unleashing robotaxis throughout San Francisco at all hours until there is more information about why and how often the cars periodically clog traffic.
During one ride, the robotaxi stopped in the middle of the street after the AP reporters got out, and remained there for several minutes while a line of human-operated cars stacked up behind it. It turned out that a back door on the driver's side hadn't completely closed. In another glitch involving Cruise last September, an AP reporter took a roughly five-mile ride in a robotaxi nicknamed "Peaches," which repeatedly bypassed the designated destination.