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Aug 26, 2026
Brad Templeton is Chairman Emeritus of the EFF, Singularity U founding computing faculty, software architect and internet entrepreneur, robotic car strategist, futurist lecturer, photographer and Burning Man artist.
This is an "ideas" blog rather than a "cool thing I saw today" blog. Many of the items are not topical. If you like what you read, I recommend you also browse back in the archives, starting with the best of blog section. It also has various "topic" and "tag" sections (see menu on right) and some are sub blogs like Robocars, photography and Going Green. Try my home page for more info and contact data.
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Aug 21, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo's Chinese-made Ojai is now available to the public and it's a comfy ride. Will it outcompete the others, and what will it be like when the prices drop?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo s Ojai Is Now Open To Public. My Experience Spoke To The Future
(This is part two, part one was yesterday)
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Aug 19, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
In 2017, I forecast that robotaxis would be the path for Chinese cars into the USA. It's happened. What do the economics of Chinese robotaxis look like?
Read more at Forbes.com in Rides In Waymo s Ojai Help Reveal Robotaxi Future
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Aug 10, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
A Waymo was involved in a pedestrian fatality in Dallas. New details suggest they were not at fault, and could not have prevented events. But could superhuman robocars do more?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Fatality Likely Not-At-Fault: Here Are New Details And What-Ifs
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Aug 06, 2026
Topic: Going GreenRobocarsTags: forbes
Soon, most EVs will be able to drive themselves slowly to nearby chargers. This will lead to the rise of "full serve" charging where a human or robot plugs the car in
Read more at Forbes.com in Full Serve EV Charging Is Coming From Self-Driving. We re Not Ready.
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Aug 05, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
To study robocar crashes, it becomes necessary to try to estimate who was at fault. Tesla's few crashes suggest they just aren't driving much. Waymo and Zoox fault counts are better.
Read more at Forbes.com in Studying Fault In Robotaxi Crashes; Tesla s Not Getting Hit Enough
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Jul 30, 2026
Topic: TransportationTags: forbes
BART is failing, but the plan to expand it involves extravagant cost to duplicate its almost 70 year old design. New technology might serve riders for far less
Read more at Forbes.com in San Jose Plans $13B BART Subway Extension. How About
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Jul 23, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Self-driving cars are often depicted as "just more cars" and thus bad news for cities and transit. But what if self-driving could be the salvation of transit?
Read more at Forbes.com in Can Self Driving Improve New Transit Even More Than It Does Cars?
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Jul 20, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Requiring human drivers, 3 sensors, fat permit fees and per-mile taxes are the wrong sorts of regulations, and the companies should avoid endorsing them
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo And Uber Support Bad, Incumbent-Protecting Laws In DC And NJ
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Jul 07, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
More data for better comparisons are good. Now everybody has to do it, and regulators and the public have to learn to look at only the data, and not individual incidents
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Releases Apples-To-Apples Incident Data, It Speaks To Regulation
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Jul 07, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Several companies have tried to declare they met a major milestone by having "nobody behind the wheel" and moving supervision to the passenger seat. It's a bad idea
Read more at Forbes.com in Robotaxi Companies Need To Stop It With The Right Seat Safety Drivers
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May 27, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes13 years ago, at the Wired 2013 event in London, I was asked when robotaxis would arrive there and as a joke, gave an answer of June 22, 2026 that turned out to be impossibly spot on. (3 companies are waiting on regulators to deploy right now.) It wasn't just a joke, though, it was based on my real predictions of the time, so as we approach the date I predicted, I've made a video to review just how predictions about self-driving by all sorts of people (especially including Elon Musk) have been right and wrong over the years, and why.
Why did so many get it so wrong? How did I get it almost dead on? Enjoy the video, or a text version which is up on the Forbes site.
Plus, here's the original talk from 2013, with the prediction near the end:
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May 23, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Figuring out the depth of water should be easy for a car with 3D sensors. So why is Waymo having so much trouble tracking flooding?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymos Have Trouble With Floods, Which Is Surprising
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May 12, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
A Waymo left a rider at the airport without his bags. Another had a flat tire on the way to the airport. Incidents like this teach hard lessons about customer service.
Read more at Forbes.com in Two Waymo Airport Stories Teach A Lesson About Customer Service
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May 05, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbesFlying cars, self-driving vans and full traffic metering probably can't be fully ready in 2028, but some modern technology can help to reduce the traffic nightmare.
Read more at Forbes.com in The L.A. Olympics Are In Two Years, Perhaps Too Soon For Much 21st Century Transportation
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Apr 24, 2026
Topic: Best Of BlogAir TravelPhotographyHere's the video I made in 2024 on watching a total solar eclipse, the most spectacular natural phenomenon you can see on the Earth. Below, I have some updates for what's different about the 2026 eclipse on Aug 12 in Spain and Iceland.
Of course, the main thing that's different is that it will be in Spain, it will fairly short, and it will be near sunset, so low on the horizon. Watch out for these notes:
The full article is updated for 2026, go there if you haven't read that.
Because it's near sunset, check on the eclipse map for the "altitude." Make sure your location has a reasonably clear horizon to the WNW. A sunset eclipse can be very spectacular, just like moonset and moonrise are spectacular. You'll see the eclipse with things behind it, not just high in the sky.
There is a danger to being at sunset--clouds on the
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Apr 23, 2026
Topic: Going GreenRobocarsTags: forbes
It's counter-intuitive, but smaller, van-sized vehicles can make more energy-efficient transit than buses and trains, because better service means less empty seats, thanks to self-driving
Read more at Forbes.com in After Earth Day, Understand The Transit Compromise To Grasp Efficiency
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Apr 22, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
FSD and Robotaxi will be a lot slower to roll out than promised earlier. A few details were given on upgrading older HW3 cars to use FSD, once it works.
Read more at Forbes.com in Elon Musk Details FSD Upgrades, Slowed Robotaxi Rollout
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Apr 21, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Why is Pony.AI starting operations in Croatia?
Read more at Forbes.com in China: Pony.AI Wants Toe In European Water
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Apr 14, 2026
Topic: Going GreenRobocarsTags: forbes
Self-driving cars seem to be just more cars, and people who dislike cars don't love that. But the electric robotaxi offers much more potential
Read more at Forbes.com in Urbanists Hate Cars. Should They Hate Electric Robotaxis?
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Apr 08, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Tesla has expanded their service area for rides with nobody in the vehicle. This implies they are closer to ready, but other clues suggest otherwise
Read more at Forbes.com in Does Tesla Really Have A Robotaxi? They Don t Make It Easy To Find Out
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Apr 05, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Baidu Apollo Robotaxis froze in the middle of lanes, stranding passengers and causing crashes. What didn't Baidu learn from Waymo and what might we suspect about the cause?
Read more at Forbes.com in Baidu Silent About Failure Of 100 Robotaxis In Wuhan
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Mar 30, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbesVerne was to ship a Croation built 2 seater custom robotaxi with Mobileye Drive. Instead they have a Chinese robotaxi from Pony.AI and Arcfox, managed by Uber.
Read more at Forbes.com in Verne Plans Croatian Robotaxi, Dropping Mobileye And Dropping Verne?
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Mar 25, 2026
Topic: Going GreenRobocarsTags: forbes
Most EVs in the 2030s will be able to drive themselves a short distance to an automated charging station. That rewrites what EV charging infrastructure to build
Read more at Forbes.com in The Core Rules Of EV Charging Infrastructure Are About To Change
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Mar 22, 2026
Topic: Air TravelTags: forbes
A fancy seat has room for 2. United could let you pair it with a coach seat you barely use and make an attractive offering for couples
Read more at Forbes.com in United Airlines Misses Opportunity With Polaris Companion Ottoman
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Mar 20, 2026
Topic: Air TravelRobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo is forced to pick up far away from the gate, especially when the AirTrain station in your terminal is closed. I describe the issues of an SFO Waymo ride for now
Read more at Forbes.com in My Waymo Ride From The Airport Was Great. Getting To It, Not So Much
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Mar 08, 2026
Topic: FuturismInventionsPeople love and hate Daylight Savings Time. Or more to the point, they hate the transition to and from it, particularly the spring one where you get 1 hour less sleep. It's even been tracked that traffic accidents go up after this shift.
There's a virtue to DST, though. We've become a night culture, and many of us get up well after sunrise and stay up well into dark, wasting hours of daylight every day. DST reduces that, though if you start the day too soon, you are rising and commuting in darkness. In the "energy crisis" they made year-round DST and many complained their kids were going to school in the dark. Of course, you can just resolve to get up earlier, or later, as you like, and control your own day, but many people must work on dictated schedules, and everybody wants to be in sync with those around them.
In the era before clocks, people tended to wake around sunrise each day. Indeed, the dawn twilight is what woke them up. Then they stayed up for 16 hours. In summer, it was 16 hours of day. In winter, they would get what daylight there was, then stay up into the night. Each day, they got up with the sun, arising at a different time, a few minutes earlier than before from December to June, a few minutes later the other half of the year. This is the natural clock that we evolved to, and is probably best for us.
Japan
Before contact with the west, Japan used a very different system. The day was divided into 12 "hours" or
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Mar 06, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
I examine if Waymo is becoming less transparent and why, and how transparent they should be. Plus several key new details on the blackout, school buses and schoolchild.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Gets Shy As Scaling Creates More Incidents; Plus Key New Details
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Feb 22, 2026
Topic: FuturismMediaI don't watch sports live, I watch on a delay. This saves a lot of time immediately by skipping commercials (if I haven't paid to remove them, as I did in the Olympics) but also things like time-outs, long no-action intervals (whistles, pitching changes, etc.) But I also skip far more. The best Winter Olympics sport is curling, for many reasons, but you can watch it in far less time if you are so inclined, without missing the key events. For example, you can usually skip the first few ends, and also the first stones of most ends.
But I've tested the ability of LLMs to understand what parts of the game are "interesting" according to rules I have set. Your rules may differ from mine, of course, but that's the cool thing about using the LLMs--you can craft your own prompt to define what you want to see.
For most sports, networks will make "highlight" reels, but they tend to be too compressed, to the point of spoiling the result. For example, if you see mostly the scoring, you know for every highlight it's very likely to show a goal, and just seeing what goal the action is around is enough to give you a big hint. Worse, on Peacock, all the highlight reels come with a full result spoiler in the title, so you can't browse them at all.
But soon an AI will be able to craft your own highlight reel, with your own tastes in what to include. The AIs can do more than just pull out the scoring or other key plays. They can learn what plays and moments all the differen
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Feb 17, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo reveals it has only one remote assist operator per 40 vehicles. I examine the security issues around having remote ops staff, particularly overseas.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Overseas Human Assist Wasn t Secret, But Is It Secure?
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Feb 10, 2026
Topic: RobocarsKevin Kelly is easily on the list of the world's best and most experienced futurists, and a friend. He's started a new podcast series to explore the most optimistic forecasts for the future, and he asked me to join him for one of his very first episodes.
Usually I like to temper my optimism, and talk both about the utopia and what can go wrong, but it's fun to just look at some of the great things in what I call the robocar vision that got me interested in it and how it can change the world.
He has some other folks who are great guests for his initial drop, and while I have not listened to them yet, I am sure they will be good.
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Feb 06, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
You want to test a robocar in a simulation of everything you can think of. Now Waymo has built an AI tool with Google Gemini to make that easier to do
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Builds Fancy AI-Based Simulator Tool To Improve Robotaxi Tests
________Facebook
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Feb 02, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
CES has become the smart car show. I summarize what was interesting from several companies.
Read more at Forbes.com in Notable Self-Driving Items From CES 2026: Nuro, Mobileye, Nvidia, More
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Feb 01, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Tesla has pushed a bold and risky strategy to do it with less hardware. Has this been an effort to force the team to make the harder path work?
Read more at Forbes.com in To Build FSD, Is Elon Musk Being Cort s And Burning His Ships?
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Jan 23, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Empty robotaxis and long drives without interventions make some imagine Tesla FSD is ready to deploy. The math may say the reverse.
Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Cannonball Runs And Empty Robotaxis; The Math On Their Reality
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Jan 23, 2026
Topic: Going GreenTags: forbes
Charging at hotels is the best way to charge on road trips. Sadly, hotels are now billing a lot more to do it.
Read more at Forbes.com in Fewer Hotels Are Offering EV Charging Free. It May Be Tesla s Fault
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Jan 20, 2026
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
A review, with video, of the new Zoox robotaxi operating in Las Vegas. The ride is good but has some flaws. Can Zoox's risky strategy win the game against Waymo, Tesla?
Read more at Forbes.com in I Ride A Zoox Robotaxi At CES And It Goofs Up A Little. (Video Review)
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Dec 31, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
I don't think Waymo failed to plan for a power outage. I suspect a combination of human craziness and some Waymo mistakes made it happen
Read more at Forbes.com in Why Did Waymos Get Stuck? Was It Crazy Humans?
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Dec 29, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo says they failed because they ran out of humans to help cars out of a jam. Why didn't simulation tell them in advance how many humans they would need?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Did Badly In A Big Power Outage. Where Was The Simulator?
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Dec 23, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
The biggest stories of the year, with no surprise, the Waymo and Tesla constrast playing a big role in the year's news.
Read more at Forbes.com in Robocars 2025 In Review: Tesla v. Waymo And More
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Dec 18, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
There are many clues that Tesla is using lots of remote monitoring and supervision, and possibly even remote driving, for their early tests. Optimus still does that.
Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Deploys Robotaxis With Nobody In Them. Are They Unsupervised?
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Dec 10, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo fixed the problem, and they should definitely obey the law. But is what they did actually dangerous? And how might we redesign the school bus system in the future?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymos Were Passing Stopped School Buses. Let s Rethink School Buses.
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Dec 09, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
We get to see a little more of how Waymo has structured their AI as they get to do the land rush alone in the USA.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Offers A Peak Under Their AI Hood And Keeps Growing
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Dec 09, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
We get to see a little more of how Waymo has structured their AI as they get to do the land rush alone in the USA.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Offers A Peak Under Their AI Hood And Keeps Growing
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Nov 30, 2025
Topic: Going GreenTags: forbes
People with gasoline thinking are obsessed with duplicating the gasoline fill-up, and want fast charging. But the right answer is to be slow, matching the dwell time.
Read more at Forbes.com in For Most EV Charging Stations, You Want The Slowest Speed, Not Fastest
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Nov 19, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo just doubled the number of cities they operate with nobody in the vehicle. How do the various teams decide where to expand next, and will it be your town?
Read more at Forbes.com in So When Do Robotaxis Come To Your Town?
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Nov 14, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Tesla has for years released highly misleading crash safety data for Autopilot. Now they may finally get closer to allowing apples to apples comparisons
Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Finally Releases FSD Crash Data That Appears More Honest
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Nov 12, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo will now drive freeways and cover most of the San Francisco peninsula, including SJC airport
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Now Serves Freeways, SJC Airport, Large New Areas
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Nov 05, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Waymo seems wiling to let outsiders look at their practices and data. Where are Tesla at the others in having this important transparency? Also, what about cats?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Gets Safety Audit, What About The Others?
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Nov 01, 2025
Topic: Going GreenGovernancePoliticsBill Gates recently posted his new thinking on Climate Change declaring we've been thinking about it the wrong way. His article is sending shockwaves, some agreeing, some feeling he has betrayed the cause, and some like Trump declaring this is proof that climate change was a hoax. I definitely agree with Gates here (and not Trump, obviously) but his revelation speaks to something even bigger than climate change, and hints at what may be the greatest mistake in global political discussion about a wide range of topics, not just climate. We've been doing it wrong, and are paying a terrible price.
Gates' thesis is that the general climate community has been overstating the case for climate change. It's a major, serious problem, which he has personally done far more to address than almost anybody, but it's not the civilization-ending emergency crisis it is often painted as. This has stopped us from allocating our resources wisely to fight the true big problems like poverty and disease, which will do far more harm to people than even the worst that global warming threatens. The way to combat climate change not simply to stop emissions (which is good) but to give people the economic prosperity and tools to contend with the hardships to come, and many others.
Read Gates' own essay to get the full scop
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Oct 31, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
The cost of the physical robotaxi is about 25% of the COGS of operating one, so it makes a difference, but only when competition is fierce and margins are thin
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Oct 22, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Tesla is still predicting they will go unsupervised this year in Austin. Their crash numbers don't say they should
Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Earnings Call Offers Self Driving Updates, Similar Predictions
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Oct 22, 2025
Topic: Going GreenTags: forbes
PHEVs were supposed to drive as EVs 75% of the time, they only did it 20%. Here's how regulations were poorly designed and cars didn't provide what drivers need.
Read more at Forbes.com in Study Concludes Plug-In Hybrid Cars Didn t Deliver On Emissions. Why?
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Oct 20, 2025
Topic: Going GreenTags: forbes
Tesla's diner is mostly a gimmick, but the integration of food ordering and driving points the way to a better energy experience when outside the city
Read more at Forbes.com in The Most Important Part Of Tesla s New Diner Charger Is In-Car Orders
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Oct 02, 2025
Topic: Going GreenTags: forbes
What if there's a new way to sell cars that makes the car cheaper and the energy more expensive, but always saves you money?
Read more at Forbes.com in Ford s Farley: They Don t Want Expensive EVs. He Could Fix That
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Sep 29, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
It was no doubt scary when a flood came upon a Waymo in Phoenix last week and passengers had to walk through it to get out. Will this happen again?
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymos Get Stuck In Phoenix Flood, How Could They Do Better?
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Sep 18, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
One of the crashes was with a static object with minor injuries and the Tesla towed away. And a 4th crash was not reported. This does not look good.
Read more at Forbes.com in Tesla Robotaxi Reports 3 Crashes In Austin On July 1, Details Hidden
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Sep 17, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Robots are well behaved, and should be given the best pick-up/drop-off spots at the airport when the time comes
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo To Test Serving SFO And Other Airports, Best Yet To Come
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Sep 14, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
The Waymo was slowing to turn right into a driveway occupied by pedestrians. A motorcycle behind it rear-ended it. Then it got much worse.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymo Involved, Apparently Not At Fault, In Motorcycle Fatality
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Sep 10, 2025
Topic: RobocarsTags: forbes
Zoox is finally taking the public to destinations in Las Vegas, but the service is so limited it's not quite a robotaxi, but it's close.
Read more at Forbes.com in Zoox Goes Limited-Live With Las Vegas Robotaxis, SF To Come
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Aug 26, 2025
Topic: Air TravelRobocarsTags: forbes
San Francisco has shifted its tune and realized that robotaxis can be an asset to traffic management. LAX should do the same in dealing with its congestion problems.
Read more at Forbes.com in Waymos Get Exclusive Access To SF Market St. How About LAX Airport?
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