Robotaxi

GM’s Cruise autonomous taxi service is pausing driverless operations everywhere after having it’s license suspended in California on Tuesday.

Waymo and Uber have rolled out a partnership in Phoenix wherein riders who order an Uber within Waymo’s service area might get picked up by a driverless Waymo vehicle, rather than a human-driven Uber car, starting today.

Autonomous robotaxi startup Pony.ai continues to expand the reach of its autonomous operations – this time venturing outside of China into the NEOM development of northwest Saudi Arabia. The company announced a new joint venture with NEOM today that includes an $100 million investment to establish a local presence and implement robotaxi rides across the Middle East.

A press release from Cruise, GM, and Honda says that the three companies plan to launch a robotaxi joint venture in Japan starting in 2026. No word if the vehicles will play charming little MIDI tunes when they pick you up, but we can dream.

GM-owned robotaxi service Cruise continues to expand its reach of driverless rides throughout the US, announcing a start of services in Houston – its fourth major city. Houston locals can now join the waitlist to take a spin in one of Cruise’s EVs, see below.

Waymo’s completely driverless taxi is coming to Los Angeles, and will be open to the public starting this week. We got an advance ride in these self-driving electric cars and a sense of what this level 4 system can do in one of the more chaotic driving situations in a city full of chaotic driving situations: a Santa Monica and Venice Beach weekend.

Cruise’s fully autonomous robotaxis recently contributed to some annoying road congestion in the streets of Austin, as captured by a video you can see below. The footage comes at a somewhat turbulent time for the self-driving rideshare company, as its vehicles are catching some opposition from residents in the cities they operate in. As is with most cases, there’s more to the story here, which appears to be a perfect example of an EV being at the wrong place at the wrong time… except in this case, it was a large chunk of Cruise’s Austin fleet…

A select group of protestors in the San Francisco Bay area are demobilizing robotaxi EVs operated by companies like Waymo and Cruise by placing orange construction cones over their sensors. While opposition to this technology has been present in small doses for years, the resistance against autonomous vehicles has recently gotten more press following a recent vote to expand the services in California. Is this a fear of autonomy or just a fear of change in general?

Waymo received final approval to operate its driverless taxis in California last week and will start charging for its driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco starting Monday, August 21.

Toyota has a new way of deploying its EVs across China. Autonomous mobility startup Pony.ai announced Friday that it held a joint venture singing ceremony with Toyota Motor Investment and GAC Toyota Motor to mass produce and deploy fully driverless electric robotaxis in China.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles continues to expand the scope of its autonomous driving technology simultaneously on two separate continents using its ID.Buzz electric vans. In Germany where the robotaxi testing initially started, Volkswagen will begin transporting actual passengers for the first time, including government officials.

Unique remote-piloted EV delivery service Halo.Car has taken a big step forward in its progress of transitioning more people over to electric vehicles. Today, the carshare startup announced it had removed the safety drivers from all its EVs, claiming to be the first company in the world to enable electric vehicles to be commercially remote-piloted on public roads without a human present inside. Watch as the empty EV turns heads around downtown Las Vegas in the video below.

Less than five months after beginning completely driverless (and pedal-less) rides on public roads in California, Zoox has expanded operations to Nevada, beginning where else but fabulous Las Vegas. Nevada is quickly becoming a hub for robotaxis, but Zoox is captured a “first” in the Silver State thanks to its unique design.

Volkswagen Group’s rideshare mobility company MOIA announced it is using Apex.AI’s software development kit to create and implement its own passenger management system to enable a network of autonomous ID.Buzz EVs.

Rideshare juggernaut Uber has signed a multi-year strategic partnership with robotaxi developer Waymo, offering driverless rides and deliveries to customers across the former’s platform. The new partnership could bring massive scale to Waymo’s driverless tech, while offering an enormous pool of potential customers.

Robotaxi developer Waymo is taking passenger and bystander safety to another level using the same technology that already allows its fleet of vehicles to offer autonomous rides around major metropolitan areas. Waymo has now added new audio and visual alerts to inform passengers if a cyclist or other passerby is approaching the exit door.

Autonomous robotaxi startup Pony.ai has garnered its latest permit in China – this time allowing rides in the city of Guangzhou without a safety officer present in the vehicle. The permit follows recent permissions awarded to the startup in Beijing, as it continues to expand through China and beyond.

According to a recent post from its CEO, robotaxi operator Cruise is now operating nonstop operations in San Francisco. The post said we will see full Cruise robotaxi operations open up to other cities, which may soon include Dallas, Texas – according to a recent company job posting.

“We’ve built our robotaxi from the ground up. Now, to truly test it, we have to break it apart.” That’s the sentiment shared by robotaxi developer Zoox as it looks to finally launch its truly driverless EV to the public soon. In the final chapter of its “Putting Zoox to the Test” YouTube series, Zoox shared unique safety features that went into the robotaxi design and, of course, included plenty of footage of its EV getting smashed up. See more below.

Robotaxi developer Waymo will soon be operating an all-electric fleet of fifth-generation Waymo Driver as it is retiring its fourth-generation tech utilized on Chrysler Pacifica hybrids. Looking ahead, Waymo will deploy the Jaguar I-Pace EVs as it continues to develop future autonomous vehicles with Geely and its all-electric ZEEKR brand.

GM’s self-driving rideshare unit, Cruise, has applied for permission to expand testing of its robotaxi rides throughout all of California. The autonomous driving specialist has already been testing rides for over a year in different cities across three states including San Francisco, but hopes to expand further throughout The Golden State.