Waymo Plans to Broaden Additional, Tesla Robotaxi App Launched — However Any Precise Growth Information?

Assist CleanTechnica’s work via a Substack subscription or on Stripe.

Waymo and Tesla have robotaxi enlargement information this week. However probably not. Let me clarify.

Waymo Robotaxis

Waymo has been increasing into increasingly more cities lately. After a long time of growth and sluggish progress, it appears Waymo is lastly hitting the speedy enlargement section of its life. After I noticed an announcement from the corporate pop up this week, I assumed it was going to be about an excellent sooner rollout plan. In any case, the title of the announcement was: “Bringing Waymo to extra folks, sooner.” Nice! The place are you increasing into now?

Oh, nicely, the announcement was mainly simply an announcement that the corporate can be increasing its robotaxi service into new cities — at some undisclosed time. In different phrases, it wasn’t actually information. The corporate wrote: “We’re continuously requested ‘when will Waymo come to my metropolis?’ The reply— we’re on our approach to serving main cities throughout the U.S. and different international cities as we work to convey the Waymo Driver to extra folks.

“With a whole bunch of 1000’s of weekly absolutely autonomous journeys and over 100 million miles of public highway expertise, we’re getting into a brand new chapter and accelerating our industrial enlargement. For those who see us driving in your metropolis, it’s as a result of we’re working laborious to serve you sooner or later.”

Oh. Okay.

Properly, no less than it wasn’t a imprecise and rambling grasp plan about unicorns and rainbow farts.

Waymo additionally supplied a quick replace of latest expansions and the breadth of its community as we speak. “At present, the Waymo Driver can navigate new cities safely and sooner, validated by our enlargement from Phoenix to the San Francisco Bay Space, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and shortly Miami, Washington, D.C., and Dallas. Working in 5+ main U.S. cities and testing throughout the nation and Tokyo has strengthened our system, creating a strong and adaptable Waymo Driver that may develop to new cities.”

Importantly, Waymo additionally highlighted that its operations make our roadways safer.

Tesla Robotaxi App Launched

Once more, Tesla additionally isn’t rising its robotaxi service space. Nonetheless, the corporate has now launched a brand new app, “Robotaxi.” I downloaded it to test it out. Nonetheless, it’s solely helpful in the mean time for folks within the Austin metro space and the Bay Space metro space the place Tesla is providing robotaxi rides with a security driver onboard.

Maybe Tesla additionally expects to develop quickly in coming months. We’ll see. However I’ve stated for years that Tesla ought to launch this app both means to be able to get it working easily, get any bugs out, and get folks used to it.

The app contains directions on the best way to open the door handles, the place to place baggage, and another fundamental issues.

Elon Musk has indicated that he expects Tesla robotaxis will probably be blanketing a lot of america by the tip of the 12 months. Although, he has stated related issues a number of occasions earlier than previously decade, so you’ll be able to’t even take such statements with a grain of salt at this level. However possibly it would lastly occur in 2025. We’ll see….

The difficulty is — as soon as Tesla begins offering robotaxi rides (security driver or not), the corporate must tackle the legal responsibility in case of an accident. And accidents will occur. I’m very curious to see how rapidly Tesla expands its robotaxi trials, however I don’t count on they are going to be with out security drivers anytime quickly.