CPUC holds hearing ahead of key Cruise, Waymo vote in SF Transit

Table Of Content

• Nancy Tung, a career prosecutor, elected as San Francisco Democratic Party chair
• California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo
• Teen suspected of torching Waymo car in SF's Chinatown: police
• Robotaxis may start charging fares 24/7 in San Francisco. But should the restrictions be lifted?
• Hatsune Miku is playing Coachella, but she’s not human. Why brands are working with digital avatars
• CPUC Approves Permits for Cruise and Waymo To Charge Fares for Passenger Service in San Francisco

Today, AV companies are only required to report collisions and not the many incidents of bricking. A “no” vote would certainly delay, if not completely derail, Cruise’s and Waymo’s plan to launch commercial operations in the state. That could accelerate plans to expand in other cities like Phoenix, where Waymo has long operated and where Cruise is starting to push into. Waymo has deployed two lobbyists with roots in SF government to lobby city officials.

Nancy Tung, a career prosecutor, elected as San Francisco Democratic Party chair

The decision was a major victory for Cruise — a subsidiary of General Motors — and Waymo — a spinoff from a secret project at Google — after spending years and billions of dollars honing a technology that they believe will revolutionize transportation. For months, San Francisco city officials have been pleading with the state to delay the vote, citing a spate of incidents in which autonomous vehicles have stopped traffic, blocked buses, or obstructed emergency vehicles. The city’s transit agency and fire and police department have all logged complaints with the CPUC, calling for the commission to reconsider the plan for 24/7 service. But it ended in a major victory for Cruise — a subsidiary of General Motors — and Waymo — a spinoff from a secret project at Google — after spending years and billions of dollars honing a technology that they believe will revolutionize transportation. For months, they have been pleading with the state to delay the vote, citing a spate of incidents in which autonomous vehicles have stopped traffic, blocked buses, or obstructed emergency vehicles. In public comments at the hearing today, and in others submitted in writing ahead of the vote, a number of residents and state and local groups said they believed the robotaxis held great promise for their communities.

California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo

Cruise has said it will bring its self-driving services to Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, and Nashville. Waymo said earlier this month that it would expand into Austin, in addition to an already planned expansion in LA. “They are still not ready for prime time because of the way they have impacted our operations,” Nicholson said during a four-hour hearing held Monday in advance of Thursday’s pivotal vote. “They’re not ready for prime time,” San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson told the Los Angeles Times recently. The department has logged 66 incidents since May 2022 in which robotaxis have interfered with firetrucks, according to The Washington Post. Local regulators have largely had to watch from the sidewalks, and they’ve been loud about their frustration (PDF).

Teen suspected of torching Waymo car in SF's Chinatown: police

In December, Peskin wrote a resolution, signed onto by all 10 of his colleagues, explicitly spelling all this out. While the ruling holds the most importance for Waymo and Cruise, it could also influence how other cities decide to regulate AVs, opening the door for similar approvals in Arizona, Texas, and other states. "I’ve already had a worrying interaction with one. I was entering a crosswalk with the green like. I looked carefully in all directions, and abruptly, an empty cruise AV turned right in front of me and went on its way,” she said. "They're over here, talking about safety, trotting out blind people, with dogs, and the very elderly and so forth, and so on," said Michael Martinez, another person opposed to an increase in AVs. But the central discussion surrounded the question of safety, something else there is broad disagreement on. Some were on hand speaking in support, others in opposition, along with the long-suffering taxi industry.

CPUC gives Cruise, Waymo green light to give paid rides 24/7 across all of San Francisco - KGO-TV

CPUC gives Cruise, Waymo green light to give paid rides 24/7 across all of San Francisco.

Posted: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Commissioners with the state's Public Utilities Commission voted eight in favor and two opposed to the expansions sought by robotaxi services Cruise and Waymo early Thursday evening after hours of public comment. San Francisco will become the first major U.S. city with two fleets of driverless vehicles competing for passengers against ride-hailing and taxi services dependent on humans to operate the cars. The 3-1 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission came in response to applications from Cruise, backed by General Motors, and Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet. It was taken in a packed San Francisco hearing room after a marathon six-hour public comment session, over strenuous objections from San Francisco officials and some vocal residents. The robots’ occasional struggles to interpret traffic conditions have in some cases delayed first responders, obstructed public transit, and disrupted construction work.

TFW your Uber driver is an empty seat.

The resolution passed by the commissioners said that the CPUC did not have enough information to conclude that robotaxis have been operating unsafely in the city. It says the commission will push to update the companies’ data collection requirements, including information on unplanned stops and interactions with first responders. According to the CPUC, more than 200 people signed up for public comment and they represent a broad range of people who support or oppose the expansions of robotaxi service in the city. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has logged nearly 75 collisions involving autonomous vehicles this year, including one last May in which a Waymo vehicle ran over and killed a small dog. Self-driving cars tend to be ultra-cautious, obeying the speed limit and stopping at stop signs — so much so that some human drivers don’t like sharing the streets with them. The state’s green light, on a 3-1 vote by the California Public Utilities Commission, signals a historic turning point for the robotaxi business as it evolves from fascinating experiment to commercial reality.

Robotaxis may start charging fares 24/7 in San Francisco. But should the restrictions be lifted?

Cruise has said that, in simulation, its AVs were involved in 92% fewer collisions as the primary contributor and 54% fewer collisions overall when benchmarked against human drivers in comparable driving environments. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-to-1 in favor of allowing the two companies to operate their vehicles at any hour of the day throughout the city of San Francisco while charging for rides. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the song and dance leading up to last week’s CPUC vote — other than the preordained nature of it — was the blurring of “safety” with driverless cars’ persistent and pervasive problems with emergency responders. On a July 25 earnings call, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said San Francisco could easily handle “several thousand” Cruise autonomous vehicles — perhaps a tenfold increase from the present total of 303. Last week’s vote by the state Public Utilities Commission smoothed the road for this aspiration. For all the high-tech wizardry behind self-driving cars, their road to approval by a state regulatory agency was low-tech.

“Given their financial backing” it’s reasonable to ask Cruise and Waymo to take the time to get things right before a major expansion. The discussion centered on Cruise and Waymo vehicles’ impact on public safety amid reports of highly publicized stops in the middle of San Francisco streets that have drawn the ire of first responders. Until November 2022, the company’s operations were limited to drives between 10 PM and 6 AM. In November, Cruise received approval to operate its robotaxis during the daytime.

CPUC Approves Permits for Cruise and Waymo To Charge Fares for Passenger Service in San Francisco

Cruise and Waymo have spent years running pilot programs in multiple cities and are hoping for big changes after the commission’s vote. Cruise, which is majority-owned by General Motors, has a late-night taxi service in San Francisco that it wants to expand, initially with 100 vehicles. Waymo, which shares a parent company with Google, wants to pick up paying passengers in the city for the first time with no human driver present as back-up. It said it doesn’t have a firm number of vehicles in mind, only that it has hundreds in San Francisco now for testing and that it wants to roll out the paid service incrementally. The agency’s decision comes just three months after it awarded Cruise the final necessary permits to charge passengers for robotaxi rides in San Francisco.

But the CPUC said that Waymo and Cruise have met all their obligations laid out in the state’s regulatory framework covering autonomous vehicle testing and commercial operation. Whether you want to explore the dynamic cities and rocky shores of the East Coast, taste wines in the California sunshine, bask on Florida’s golden beaches, or see Alaska’s incredible wildlife, our United States cruises will deliver your dream vacation. Immerse yourself in Boston’s historic sites and exciting culinary scene. Ride the vintage cable cars in San Francisco and explore the dazzling colors of Seattle’s Pike Place Market.

“Cruise and Waymo, they’re both Bay Area-founded companies that have big offices in San Francisco,” said Lee Edwards, a tech investor who’s an active booster of autonomous vehicles on social media. A running theme was skepticism of big tech companies that don’t have the best interests of the city of San Francisco at heart. Opponents also dismissed the autonomous vehicles as tools of the surveillance state, festooned with cameras and other sensors that could be handed over to law enforcement upon request. But it doesn’t seem to take into account the cars’ preternatural ability to disrupt firefighters, separate and apart from all the other safe driving they do. But, for the most part, when inadvertently breaching an emergency scene, even subpar human drivers tend to listen to firefighters’ orders and get the hell out of Dodge.

They said most of their self-driving vehicles pull over to the side of the road and respond accordingly to oncoming first responders. Autonomous-vehicle representatives added that they are continuing to collaborate with police and fire department officials to remedy any ongoing issues. “Safety continues to improve despite increasing complexity,” said Vogt two weeks ago. “Our analysis of the first 1 million miles shows AVs experienced 54% fewer collisions than human drivers in similar environments, and 92% fewer where the AV was the primary contributor. In other words, the vast majority of collisions are caused by inattentive human drivers, not the AV.” Vogt envisioned a day when people will find it more affordable to take robotaxis instead of owning cars. In a June 22 letter, the president of the union for San Francisco police officers warned of potentially dire consequences if Cruise and Waymo are allowed to expand throughout the city.

Jeffrey Tumlin, director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, says he’s bullish about the technology, but not the way company performance data is largely a black box to local officials. To underscore her point, Nicholson cited 55 written reports of the robotaxis interfering with emergency responses. She said she is worried the problems will get worse if Cruise and Waymo are allowed to operate their services wherever and whenever they want in San Francisco — raising the risk of their disruptions resulting in injury, death or the loss of property that could have been saved.

After hours of public testimony, those opposed to the vehicles appeared to have a slight edge over the supporters — though hundreds spoke for both sides. The commissioners urged the companies to address problems raised by San Francisco officials and residents about AVs blocking roads, causing traffic jams, and impeding emergency vehicles. If there are further reports of incidents, the CPUC could vote to limit the number of vehicles allowed on the road or revoke the companies’ permits altogether, Commissioner Darcie Houck said.

The company’s future expansion timeline is murky, however, even with the state’s recent stamp of approval. And though Vogt enticed investors with his ambitious vision for Cruise’s expansion, company spokespeople at a recent California Public Utilities Commission hearing with city officials struck a more conservative tone. San Francisco is far behind its goal of eliminating road deaths, and human drivers are almost always at fault when there’s a collision between them and a driverless car such as a Cruise or Waymo.