Andrew is transportation editor at The Verge, He covers electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, public transit, policy, infrastructure, electric bikes, and the physical act of moving through space and time. Prior to this, he wrote about politics at City & State, Crain’s New York Business and the New York Daily News. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids, and many different brands of peanut butter.
Emergency response officials from San Francisco and Austin met with regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a private meeting last month to clear the air about robotaxis, according to a recording obtained by Wired. Waymo vehicles are “freezing” in front of fire stations and committing more traffic violations, the officials said. Waymo declined to attend the meeting.
For the first time, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles approved new regulations allowing for the testing and deployment of heavy-duty autonomous trucks. The agency also expanded its current rules to allow law enforcement to cite operators for moving violations involving their autonomous vehicles. AV companies are also now required to respond to first responder calls within 30 seconds, and to allow officials to clear AVs from emergency zones.
Do air taxis sound like ‘leaves in the wind’?
We already reported that Geely, which also owns Volvo and Polestar, is the Chinese automaker best positioned to sell its vehicles in the US. Now the company is reportedly in talks with Ford about that exact possibility — though it seems that negotiations have already stalled. Ford is considering licensing Geely’s tech for its own cars, but there are heavy restrictions on Chinese software in US vehicles.
[Wall Street Journal]
It’s slightly smaller than the full Cayenne EV, and costs a little bit less, with a starting price of $116,000 that can be specced all the way up to $170,000 for the top trim. It can do 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds while putting out 1,141 horsepower. And it’s 113 kWh battery offers up to 350 miles of range, with a peak charging speed of 400 kW.
The Amazon-owned company is testing robotaxi rides with employees as passengers to and from the Las Vegas airport. The plan is to offer the service publicly in the near future. But as many have noted, it may be tough going in a vehicle without any dedicated storage space for luggage.
