A recent lawsuit reveals the ugly truth: Autopilot can ignore stop signs, blow through intersections and fail to brake.
Robot cars, human-size problems
ChatGPT
Robotaxis are silently (and sometimes awkwardly) roaming around Phoenix, San Francisco, Austin and wherever else humans dare let cars do improv in traffic. Waymo, Tesla and soon Amazon want you to ghost your Uber driver and jump headfirst into a future with no one behind the wheel.
Tempting? Sure. But should you? Well…
🧠 Waymo: sensor show-off
Waymo is Google’s souped-up baby Jaguar. And it’s not just cute. It’s packing serious hardware: GPS, radar, lidar and 29 cameras. You’d think it could see into next Tuesday.
In Phoenix, you can summon one with no driver. The doors unlock, you hop in, and off you go. Well, mostly.
Regulators have flagged 22 “incidents” ranging from boo-boos with barriers to cases of being directionally defeated by construction cones. One time, two women were straight-up trapped inside a car when the doors wouldn’t open. (Waymo Escape Room: now accepting reservations.)
Let’s not forget the recall: More than 1,200 vehicles were pulled after collisions with stationary objects.
Still, here’s the twist: Waymo’s crash rate is up to 80% lower than human drivers when it comes to injury-causing accidents. It’s safer, just not graceful. Think: clumsy nurse with steady hands.
⚡ Tesla: risk-taker
Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” robotaxis skip the radar, skip the lidar and go camera-only. It’s kind of like teaching your car to drive by binge-watching dashcam videos.
In Austin, they’re testing 10 driverless Teslas with remote watchers instead of safety drivers. They need to. There’s a video of one in Austin having a brain-fart moment when seeing cops on the side of the road.
FSD recently failed to stop for a child-size dummy next to a school bus … eight times. One drove onto train tracks. And yes, there’s at least one fatal pedestrian crash under federal investigation. I love innovation, but I’m not about to trust my life to a car that still needs a hall monitor.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman are fighting like kids on the playground
By The Royal Society, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152333860; By TechCrunch - TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 - Day 2, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=127902290
It feels like forever ago. The first time I tried ChatGPT, I knew it would change everything. Back in 2022, images of people had seven fingers and every other thing a chatbot spit out was nonsense. I asked Google’s Gemini for a Bible verse and it told me no because the Bible was a copyrighted work. Yikes.
Tunnel vision: The Musk Boring Company is planning a 10-mile loop in Nashville, linking downtown to the airport. It’s privately funded, Tesla-filled (of course) and could launch by 2026 if no one panics about excavation under Music City.
$16.5 billion
That’s how much Tesla’s spending on AI chips from Samsung, and that’s just the appetizer. Interestingly, not buying ’em from Nvidia. Elon Musk says it’s a “baseline,” which in Musk-speak usually means “buckle up.” The AI6 chips will be homegrown in Texas, giving “Made in America” a futuristic glow-up.
🛻 I think he might be right: Waze’s cofounder thinks Gen Beta (those born from 2025 to around 2039) won’t ever touch a steering wheel. With Tesla and Waymo pushing robotaxis, Uri Levine says the future is all self-driving, and maybe mobile shoe stores. So yeah, traffic might just be a bunch of vans selling Crocs.
🚘 What a bunch of Grok: Tesla just shoved its chaotic AI chatbot, Grok, into new cars, and it’s coming for older ones, too. It won’t drive or blast AC (yet), but it will banter, joke, and yes, there’s an “Unhinged” mode. You need Wi-Fi or a Premium plan to chat, but no account required.
“Full self-driving” debunked: A Tesla owner just got his $10K back after proving “Full Self-Driving” isn’t even close. The car never qualified for FSD beta, and turns out the hardware can’t handle autonomy anyway. It’s “Full Self-Driving” the way LaCroix is “juice.”
Tesla’s ghost delivery: This is something. Tesla just delivered a car from its factory to a customer with zero humans inside, not even a remote operator. The car just snuck home like a teenager after curfew. Elon says it’s the first true hands-off highway drive. I wonder: If you miss a few car payments, will it also drive itself back to the dealer?
$4.20 flat fee
What it costs to ride Tesla’s new robotaxi in Austin, Texas. Right now, about 10 self-driving Model Ys are on the road, with a Tesla employee riding shotgun just in case. Elon says 1,000 more are coming in the next few months, with San Francisco and LA up next (paywall link). Good luck, traffic.
Reason #452 why I sold my Tesla: FSD was a pile of poopy hype. In repeated trials, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving feature rolled past stop signs and mowed down child-size mannequins like a GTA side quest. Elon says safety is top priority, which is reassuring to the mannequins’ plastic parents.
🚖 Tesla Robotaxis are coming: If you’re in Austin, you might see them on June 22. Musk says the launch is “tentative,” and it’ll start small with just 10 to 20 Model Ys. They’re being extra careful, too, with employees watching remotely and geofencing to keep cars within certain areas. Fingers crossed.
Watt is love? Baby don’t Hertz me: Tesla’s wheeling out its long-hyped robotaxis in Austin, starting with 10 cars and ramping to a thousand, basically a product experiment with bumpers. Musk says they’ll “geofence” the cars into safer areas. Everyone’s watching, especially Waymo.
$800 million
The estimated value of unsold Cybertrucks collecting dust on Tesla lots. With over 10,000 cars sitting in dealer inventory, the stainless-steel behemoth is shaping up to be less “futuristic tank” and more “Elon’s very expensive parking lot decor.” Turns out the PS1-looking fever dream isn’t exactly America’s sweetheart.
Ever own a Tesla?
Your name could end up on a hit list. A shady site is doxxing people it thinks are Tesla owners, even if they sold the car years ago.
🚗 Want to own your own Waymo? Not me, thank you. This is a sneaky way to offload old inventory. Why? Tesla’s rolling out its own self-driving taxis in June, and they’re supposed to cost just 20% to 25% of Waymo’s.
🚨 Cybertruck recall: Tesla is recalling nearly all Cybertrucks to fix an exterior panel that could just fly off while driving. Own one? Head to a Tesla service center for a free fix before your truck starts shedding parts on the highway.
He must have used Bono as his GPS voice: A Tesla driver was following Google Maps on a mountain and took the wrong turn. Instead of sticking to the clearly marked roadway, he ended up on a ski slope. Luckily, the ski patrol spotted the car, chased it down and stopped it. The driver still doesn’t know what he was looking for.
🚨 850K vehicles recalled! Tesla, Ford, Toyota, Maserati, Volkswagen and Rivian are dealing with crash risks, seat belt issues, rearview camera errors and more. If your car is affected, you should receive a notice by mail, but it’s worth calling your dealership to confirm. Own a Tesla? Use your VIN with the search tool to check.
To the moon: The New York Stock Exchange is moving its fully electronic stock market headquarters from Chicago to Dallas. Why? They say it’s because Texas has the most NYSE listings of any state, with over $3.7 trillion in market value. You’d better believe the business-friendly taxes and regulations are a draw, too. Look at Elon Musk. Tesla’s HQ moved to Austin in 2021, and he says X and SpaceX are next.