13.14 - Safe
14th edition of the 13th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter
Very few of Waymo’s most serious crashes were Waymo’s fault
Kai Wikkiams, Sept. 17, At 1:14 AM on May 31st, a Waymo was driving on South Lamar Boulevard in Austin, Texas, when the front left wheel detached. The bottom of the car scraped against the pavement as the car skidded to a stop, and the passenger suffered a minor injury, according to Waymo.
Among the 45 most serious crashes Waymo experienced in recent months, this was arguably the crash that was most clearly Waymo’s fault. And it was a mechanical failure, not an error by Waymo’s self-driving software..….” Read more Hmmmm… This is an excellent article that everyone should read, especially those who are concerned with the safety of driverless cars. It has become my learned opinion that Waymo is indeed safer than human driven cars, and that version 13 of Tesla’s FSD drives better than I drive. If managed to operate driverlessly only in well tested Operational Design Domains (ODD) rather than allowed to venture anywhere, In My Humble Learned Opinion (IMHLO), both Waymo and FSD v13 can deliver societal benefits that exceed disbenefits that may arise due to crashes. If carefully targeted to serve only those who can benefit most from operation in the safest OODs, then, IMHLO, the societal benefits to the riders of those systems can vastly overshadow the societal safety costs that can arise from their operation.
Consequently, it is time that we all focus on extracting the enormous net societal value that driverless technology can deliver to humanity by simply giving high-quality affordable rides to people who really need a ride. Alain
The Real Case for Driverless Mobility
Narrated by Fred Fishkin, Available now
Published in 2024 (but still relevant)!!! Go to Amazon.com…
SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 399 / PodCast 399 -
F. Fishkin, Sept. 20, “An examination of Waymo’s crash reports, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas talks about AI, Robotaxis as public transit, a Tesla may have saved a life and more. From Understanding AI, writer Kai Williams joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 399 of Smart Driving Cars. Tune in, subscribe and also find us on The Transportation Channel.”
0:00 open
0:55 Kai Williams from Understanding AI on his piece: Very Few of Waymo’s Most Serious Crashes Were Waymo’s Fault
33:30 Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley: AI is about to get physical
35:30 The Verge headline Robotaxis as public transit? Waymo thinks so.
37:00 Waymo gets green light for airport service in SF
40:45 McKinsey conference video on Waymo’s vision for the future of mobility share
41:10 Business Insider- Uber CEO says robotaxis could displace drivers in 10 to 15 years and discussion on The Real Case for Driverless Mobility
52:59 Update on Handy Rides
53:25 Inside EVs: The Car Stopped Itself: Tesla Collision Avoidance Assist Lives Up to Its Name
September 26-30, 2025
Nashville, Tennessee
A. Adam Jonas, Sept. 15, “AI is rapidly expanding its presence. The lines between mobile devices and robots are becoming more blurred. AI is gaining physical abilities. Morgan Stanley Research looks into how the intersection of AI and the physical economy is transforming industries and creating new markets. …” Read more Hmmmm… Adam gave this talk in my class last Monday; then took questions. What a treat for 80 minutes! A MUST watch. Alain
’The Car Stopped Itself’: Tesla Collision Avoidance Assist Lives Up To Its Name
C Swiatecki, Sept. 17, Just as she was easing into a left turn at one of the busiest intersections in her city, the driver of a 2023 Tesla Model Y felt her car jolt to a stop, unprompted. A moment later, another vehicle flew through the red light.
“The car stopped itself,” creator Brenda (@brendaharjala) later recalled in the caption from her viral TikTok, crediting her Tesla’s reflexes for avoiding a serious crash. But what exactly took control?
According to the caption and supporting comments from the driver, the incident involved a 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range (7-seat) running Hardware 4, with no Full Self-Driving (FSD) package or Autopilot engaged. However, she confirmed that Collision Avoidance Assist was enabled. That’s a standard safety feature that comes with all new Tesla vehicles, regardless of optional autonomy packages.
When she began making a wide-angle left turn, her Tesla appeared to detect a rapidly approaching vehicle that had blown through a red light at a perpendicular angle. The Model Y then engaged emergency braking before the driver could react, which surprised her and saved her from potential injury…. “ Read more Hmmmm… Kai didn’t mention Waymo’s extra safety contribution by avoiding crashes that a human driver would not have avoided. One might classify this as a latent safety contribution that isn’t tabulated in the plus column because a crash never happened. In my humble experiences, these systems see better than I see, react faster than I react, measure distances and relative speeds better than I perceive them and certainly behave exceedingly better and more courteously than I behave. It is time that NHTSA, Congress, and state governments recognize that driverless vehicles today are a technology that can deliver enormous societal value more affordably, safely and effectively than any other program/initiative in its arsenal other than maybe seat belts and airbags, both of which are crash-mitigation initiatives, not crash avoidance initiatives. Driverless is both. It is better than humans in crash avoidance and crash mitigation IMHLO. Alain
The inflection point has arrived’: Waymo’s vision for the future of mobility Share
M. Coleman, Sept. 5 , “…At a recent McKinsey conference in California’s Carmel Valley, Waymo’s chief product officer Saswat Panigrahi, and McKinsey Partner Emily Shao discussed how AVs have transformed from a niche experiment to a mainstream transportation option. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.….” Read more Hmmmm… Was all of the substance of their discussion edited out? This is embarrassingly weak. C’Mon McKinsey! Alain
Robotaxis as public transit? Waymo thinks so
A. Hawkins, Sept. 18 , “…In Chandler, Arizona, Waymo’s robotaxis will soon join the town’s Flex microtransit service. Users book rides on the Chandler Flex app to be picked up by a shared vehicle and taken to their destination, often connecting to Valley Metro bus routes. Soon, users may be matched with Waymo’s fully autonomous vehicles as part of the service.
The service will run Monday through Friday, 6AM-9PM, with rides booked through Chandler Flex costing just $2 for regular riders, $1 for seniors and wheelchair users, and free for middle and high school kids. (Waymo recently introduced teen accounts in Phoenix so kids as young as 14 can ride without their parents.)….” Read more Hmmmm… Wheelchair users for only $2??? How can Waymo do that at a cost of only $2???? That is great!!!! Thank you, Alpha, Bet!!!!.
The text did say “cost”; whoops…”cost to riders”; whoops; what does it cost Waymo to give the ride? Whoops… what does it cost Waymo to provide those rides?
In NJ, NJ Transit in 2023 reported to have spent $128,346,967. Providing Demand-responsive mobility services that resulted in 1,422,594 Unlinked Passenger Trips. Dividing expenditures by output yields an average cost per trip of $90.22 for which NJT collected and average fare of $1.95.
I understand that Arizona is not the same as New Jersey, even though the fare for such trips is very similar. I sure hope that Waymo’s average costs of providing demand responsive rides in Chandler is substantially less than NJT’s in NJ. Is AlphaBet really willing to pick up such a large discrepancy between cost and price? If they aren’t, who is? And are either of these “entities” anxious to subsidize that difference as scale increases? Do they really believe that scale can narrow that chasm anytime soon? It would have been informative if Andrew had focused on that issue rather than a “balancing citation” from David Zipper last year: Robotaxis Are No Friend of Public Transportation . Alain
Waymo gets green light for airport service in San Francisco
A. Hawkins, Sept. 16 , “Waymo is now permitted to test its robotaxi service at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), a big win for the company as it seeks to expand its service area and tackle more popular, revenue-generating destinations.….” Read More Hmmmm… Are these Waymos going to cost $2/ride as in Chandler? No, you silly! Cost here is to those going to/from airports, you silly. Plus, what would happen to Uber & Lyft if Waymo cost $2/ride to/from SFO? Waymo is holding a $10B -> $20B IOU. Yes the $10 -> $20B are sunk costs that can be wiped clean, so what can Waymo’s look like going forward? I can’t find anyone that seems to be wanting to talk discuss driverless costs, let alone Waymo costs. Mckinsey, above never came close to that hot stove. I guess that is none of our business, unless it is taxpayers who are being asked to pick up any discrepancy between cost & price.
By the way, if Waymo aggressively prices airport rides as they look to be maybe doing in Chandler, will someone make the claim that they are predatory pricing airport rides? I guess no one has uttered that claim in Chandler, maybe because is even serving those rides to be predatory priced out of that service. Who knows? Is anyone awake enough to know? I give up.
On a more serious note… I couldn’t disagree more while doing it most respectfully, with Andrew’s last paragraph… “But airports represent a huge money-making opportunity for robotaxis, with airport trips accounting for an estimated 20 percent of human-driven ridehail car trips. Waymo will need airport access if it hopes to eventually compete with Uber and Lyft — to say nothing of earning enough money to make a profit”…
The airport market is an infinitesimally small mobility market in which neither Uber or Lyft are impressively profitable. Win that market and you’ve actually won very little, if anything at all Plus, you’ve delivered zero, if not negatively contributed to, any net increase is Quality-of-life. Sorry Waymo. You’ve done a fabulous job of demonstrating safe driverless mobility; however, you’ve focused on applying that wonderful technological achievement on absolutely the wrong market… entertainment and putting hard working gig workers out of what may be one of the only jobs that they relish doing. What a shame! Alain
A self-driving car traffic jam is coming for US cities
D. Zipper, Sept. 15, “…” Read more Hmmmm… I’m sorry. This is so bad that I can’t even quote any of the article. Even The McKinsey article was better. Alain
E. McKanna, Sept. 19, “The rise of self-driving cars could eventually cost many ride-hailing drivers their jobs — and that’s a big problem, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said.….” Read more Hmmmm… Dara has a serious problem. He knows that he can’t compete with “Waymo,” so his gig workers suffer the eventual consequences of being priced out of the market.. He also knows that he can’t abandon those gig workers and go driverless, because the change-over can’t be realized fast enough. Either way his gig workers who have “worked for close to nothing” are thrown under the bus and the downfall can’t be pretty. No downfall of this magnitude is ever pretty. That’s capitalism. Alain
HandyRides Update
A. Kornhauser, Sept. 19, “Soft launch giving revenue rides going as well as can be expected. We learned a lot this week.” Hmmmm… OK! Alain