After Mark Rober's video on Tesla vs. a LIDAR car, somebody tries to replicate the test on FSD instead of Autopilot, as Rober should have. One FSD works, another fails.

Mark Rober's tests were pretty artificial and examined Tesla's obsolete driver-assist system, not its prototype self-driving system.

It took a while, but Waymo is now servicing its HQ and the place it was born. I worked there 13 years ago and have seen it grow up.

With Waymo up to 200,000/week, total rides are now well over a million a month. The robotaxi is here. But people mistake it for Uber because it looks like that today.

We look at Musk's very specific words from the earnings call, and what they might translate to in Austin to make a service when the software's not yet ready

Tesla is "cheap and everywhere first, they hope for safe." Waymo is "Safe first, then expand and lower costs." MobilEye thinks there is a zig-zag through the middle

In order to compare the two, it's important to figure out just how to judge the quality of a self-driving system.

The claim of the vehicles driving around, carrying passengers with no driver behind the wheel by June borders on ridiculous. The numbers just don't back it up

It doesn't matter what Musk really meant with this salute. Robotaxis are exclusively a product for large urban areas, and that population largely didn't like it at all.

The competition to win in self-driving saw setbacks in 2024, but things were still going strong at CES. Here's a summary of some transportation stories from CES

I made a video version of my 2024 countdown of self-driving stories...

It was a year of tumult, with success and major failures. Let's count down the top self-driving stories of 2024

New safety data on Waymos, made by the insurer SwissRe, shore up claims of Waymos reducing risk on the road.

GM has killed Cruise's robotaxi project. In this article, I muse about some consequences, including why Tesla should buy it, what it means for global competition and what role the DMV played in the death of Cruise and what it should think about that. Link to the article in the comments.

Read my Forbes site story at Tesla should buy Cruise

Waymo in year one made a fixed-stop campus robotaxi service with cheap parts, 15 years before Tesla's demonstration of a similar concept. Robotaxi history began here.

Instead of Uber, a Nigeria based ride-hail finance enabler will run the depots and charging. Florida has a special history with robocars, but also presents challenges.

Waymo's service area is still 80 square miles (LA to Santa Monica) but now anybody can ride. It's another milestone.

Musk won big (though thanks to Twitter it may have been no gamble.) But now will urban, blue riders avoid his robotaxis? What happens when the government flips again?

Waymo also just announced they are doing 150,000 rides/week. This internal research projects shows off some interesting abilities of LLMs and a different approach.

Waymo just closed a $5.6B funding round. Some of that will be used to grow the fleet, but is there a way to grow fleets with debt rather than equity finanancing?