Robotaxi
[10] Robotaxis would reduce operating costs by eliminating the need for a human driver, which might make it an affordable form of transportation and increase the popularity of transportation-as-a-service (TaaS) as opposed to individual car ownership.
[17] In 2023, some robotaxis caused congestion when they blocked roads due to lost cellular connectivity, and others failed to properly yield to emergency vehicles.
However, as of 2021, questions have been raised as to whether the progress of self-driving technology has stalled and whether issues of social acceptance, cybersecurity and cost have been addressed.
[27] Separate to these efforts have been trials of larger shared autonomous vehicles on fixed routes with designated stops, able to carry between 6 and 10 passengers.
[28] In addition, consumers still have doubts about whether robotaxi can cope with complex urban environments or severe weather conditions.
[35] In August 2016, MIT spinoff NuTonomy was the first company to make robotaxis available to the public, starting to offer rides with a fleet of 6 modified Renault Zoes and Mitsubishi i-MiEVs in a limited area in Singapore.
[37][38][39][40] In August 2017, Cruise Automation, a self-driving startup acquired by General Motors in 2016, launched the beta version of a robotaxi service for its employees in San Francisco using a fleet of 46 Chevrolet Bolt EVs.
In September 2016, the company started a trial allowing a select group of users of its ride-hailing service in Pittsburgh to order robotaxis from a fleet of 14 modified Ford Fusions.
[69][70] In March 2017, one of Uber's robotaxis crashed in self-driving mode in Arizona, which led the company to suspend its tests before resuming them a few days later.
[75][76] In early 2017, Waymo, the Google self-driving car project which became an independent company in 2016, started a large public robotaxi test in Phoenix using 100 and then 500 more Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans provided by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles as part of a partnership between the two companies.
[80] In November 2017, Waymo revealed it had begun to operate some of its automated vehicles in Arizona without a safety driver behind the wheel.
[86] In August 2022, Baidu achieved a landmark victory in the race for autonomous vehicles by securing the first permits in China to deploy fully driverless taxis in the cities of Wuhan and Chongqing.
In August 2024, Apollo Go has deployed 400 robotaxis operating fully autonomously without any safety personnel on board in Wuhan, offering 24/7 service to 9 million residents.
[62][92] Also in February 2022, Cruise petitioned U.S. regulators (NHTSA) for permission to build and deploy a self-driving vehicle without human controls.
[96][98] These decisions were enacted in parallel with the exposure of safety risks, identified earlier within the Cruise company, regarding proper vehicle behavior around children and around construction sites.
The company also reiterated that all of their other models of cars and pickup trucks would be usable as robotaxis after a software update and regulatory approval, which they expected at the earliest in California and Texas in 2025.
