The streets of San Francisco are now open day and night to driverless taxis, whose chargeable rides were previously only allowed from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday, after seven hours of discussions, the California Public Utilities Commission, the body that regulates state public services – including autonomous vehicles – finally gave the green light to Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet (parent company of Google), and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors (GM), to operate their fleet of self-driving cars. In recent days, an advertising campaign had even been published in the newspapers claiming that “ humans are very bad drivers”.
In recent years, San Francisco has been the playground of many companies testing their self-driving taxi services. This activity engulfs billions of dollars. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM took in just $102 million in 2022 from Cruise but “cracked” $3.3 billion in spending. Alphabet and other investors have raised $5.7 billion for Waymo since 2020. Google, General Motors, Amazon, etc., who rely on these robot taxis, are convinced of the robustness of the economic model. GM boss Mary Barra predicts her company will make $50 billion a year by the end of the decade from self-driving vehicles. The savings made by robot taxi operators on the absence of a driver would offset the amounts invested after a few years. Provided that their circulation is well accepted. Some of the inhabitants of San Francisco, united in a collective called Safer Street Rebel, opposes the trivialization of these robot cars and points out the risks for pedestrians, cyclists and for public transport.
