I like how they only have 2 seats. Whenever I take a cab, I’m looking to have 1 seat for me and maybe 1 other person. I don’t ever want to take my kids or friends with me. More braindead bullshit from the dipshit fascist.
So then you would call one of the other robotaxis with 5 seats….
Which they already have more of
TBF it’s not “already under investigation” as if something bad already happened. It and other robo-cabs are being evaluated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for conformance to new safety standards designed to accommodate self-driving cars - such as not requiring them to have steering wheels or brake pedals.
On the surface, this could be entirely legit, not worth the outrage.
I can easily believe
- regulations are not ready for self-driving vehicles
- a manufacturer decided some required equipment is not suited for a car meant to be self-driving only
- the manufacturer self-certified, with exemptions where there is no regulatory framework yet.
- government agency sees that and starts an investigation to see if they agree
Even before you get into what you think of this specific manufacturer and whether they’re really ready for self-driving, this is a “normal” process
I’m more worried about regulations defining what self driving needs to be capable of and tests to qualify it
Whether a cyberCab is capable of safely self-driving is a different question from whether a self-driving vehicle is required to have a steering wheel
I saw one speeding (10 over the limit) on the Interstate in Kansas City. Had a California plate, but I’m assuming it came from Austin?
No fucking way, I’m getting into one of those death traps and then letting it drive me across country.
Vehicles don’t have to be tested before going on the road? Do they just issue license plates to any new car model?
Plates don’t come with the cars here. Individuals go and get plates after they buy a new car. Hell, in a lot of places now, the plate follows the person and not the car when it gets sold used…
whether it meets federal safety standards.
I’m just gonna throw out a wild guess: NO.
Have you considered who’s currently in charge of federal safety standards?
I’d still like my autonomous cab to have windshield wipers. I’ll feel better.
I would get in a jonhy cab way before one of these.
“Before you ride today, Elon needs to know a little bit about your voting history.”
Is it painted gold because that’s Trump’s favorite color?
The rust will be harder to spot
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is updating vehicle standards to make it easier and faster for driverless cars to deploy on public roads. It’s currently tweaking eight rules, including those requiring car parts that driverless cars don’t really need: brake pedals, windshield wipers, and rearview mirrors. But for now, years-old standards remain in place.
Beyond private companies using tax dollars to manage their special regulatory environment, privatize and monetize public roads, and test their unfinished and unregulated products on citizens, I expect these to be fully-equipped roving surveillance and oppression machines:
-
Each car can be covertly equipped with a suite of LPR or facial recognition cameras, sensors, and signals intelligence equipment.
-
Autonomous cars can patrol and surveil large areas to gather intelligence while acting as innocuous taxis.
-
Journalists, brown people, or pregnant woman making the mistake of entering one of these could simply be recognized and driven to a “detention” center for arrest.
-
Vehicles can autonomously work in tandem to hunt down and assault other vehicles, or serve as transport for domestic military operations, or blockade roads.
-
Service can be selectively denied to certain areas or social groups to curtail and manage movement during protests or events.
I mean, just use your imagination as to how an authoritarian federal government could collude with a Fascist tech CEO to leverage a large autonomous robo-taxi fleet set upon the population:
A decade ago I would have thought you were paranoid. If the last few years have taught me anything it’s that you’re just being realistic. :/
This has always been my problem with the future of self-driving cars too, and of course several people have argued with me that I’m stupid.
I don’t trust any corporations now and I don’t trust that the government will always be benevolent - if you’re in the US, it already isn’t, at least mine is still fairly sensible, but that could change easily too.
One of the biggest problems is that self-driving cars either are, or one day will be safer than human drivers. Which of course is a great thing! But then there will be a push to ban manual driving. First we’ll get I, robot, where manual driving is frowned upon. It’ll happen step by step.
Also: a fast means of transport for me and my family that doesn’t stop working when comms go down and isn’t restricted to a specific route, is what keeps me feeling much safer living <200 km from the Russian border. Buses or trains need to wait till they get enough people on to fill them, otherwise it’s inefficient. Self-driving cars likely won’t go anywhere. Bicycles and feet are great for day to day life in a livable city, but they don’t let me cross 4 national borders in 16 hours.
This has always been my problem with the future of self-driving cars too
It’s not an issue with self-driving cars. It’s an issue with internet connected vehicles, regardless of autonomous driving.
“Does this thing run on gasoline‽‽ Gas explodes, you know!!!”
Always wished that the cop had told the doctor that was specifically how it worked.
I should rewatch it tbh. Been a long time, I’d forgotten that line.
I love and hate your comment.
Thanks for pointing out couple more nightmares to come and stay! :)I expect these to be fully-equipped roving surveillance and oppression machines:
- Each car can be covertly equipped with a suite of LPR or facial recognition cameras, sensors, and signals intelligence equipment.
- Autonomous cars can patrol and surveil large areas to gather intelligence while acting as innocuous taxis.
- Journalists, brown people, or pregnant woman making the mistake of entering one of these could simply be recognized and driven to a “detention” center for arrest.
- Vehicles can autonomously work in tandem to hunt down and assault other vehicles, or serve as transport for domestic military operations, or blockade roads.
- Service can be selectively denied to certain areas or social groups to curtail and manage movement during protests or events.
I mean, just use your imagination as to how an authoritarian federal government could collude with a Fascist tech CEO to leverage a large autonomous robo-taxi fleet set upon the population
Whoa, that’s scary, but you probably right
It feels like we’re heading for the bad part of Manna faster and faster. If you haven’t read Manna, do yourself that service and spend 45 minutes read it. It used to be free on the authors website, but, the website was removed, when the author died, but it’s easy to find
-
Shouldn’t they have investigated that before it was allowed to operate?
US allows carmakers to self certify first
That’s what I’m complaining about
The US loves self regulation. It’s a crapshoot. The DOT allows self certification for motorcycle helmets as well. Their admittedly low sample count of random helmet testing still fails at a rate of ~40%.
That’s abysmal. You should look for CE marked helmets (and things in general) that have been approved for sale in the European Union.
My understanding is that the testing methods have diverged enough that very few helmets meet both the ECE 22.06 and DOT(FMVSS 218) certifications. A European helmet with only the ECE certification would not be ‘street legal’ here in the states. I own a Shoei RF-1400 with a Snell/DOT rating. I believe the EU sells it as the NXR2 (with only ECE 22.06) but while they look identical they have tiny differences for the certifications they need to pass. I think the ECE 22.06 standard is better than the DOT one by far and I wish the US would just conform with most of the world but we don’t really do that. The major problem helmets are generally not from big name manufacturers but the hundreds of ‘DOT certified’ helmets you can find on Amazon for $30-100 from brands like GIDLVV and other such gibberish. You can basically guarantee those are absolute junk but they come with the correct sticker…
That sounds like a right mess.
US, the land that keeps giving.
What the fuck?
Normally, it makes sense to allow companies to certify their compliance with these types of regulations. It would be a waste of resources to have the government inspect every new model ahead of time to make sure they have things like mirrors and steering wheels. It’s not like they can lie on the forms and no one will notice. Nor would a normal car company have any reason to, since they’d just be setting themselves up for lawsuits, fines and costly recalls.
The difference here is that Tesla decided they could issue themselves an exemption from regulations, which is not the same thing. They want to declare the car street legal without including basic items mandated by law. Other companies making self-driving cars that wanted approval for models that lacked required equipment got exemptions before they launched their models. Tesla just said “it’s fine, we gave ourselves an permission” without even consulting NHTSA.
But that’s pretty much the way Tesla operates. They have a long history of ignoring laws, lying to regulators, withholding evidence, and generally acting like they can do whatever the hell they want. It’s been backfiring on them a little in more recent years, but not nearly as much as it should.
He and Trump invented an entire government organization to cripple the people who would look into his bullshit.
Still looks right out of Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Down to the gold color in the desert zone. Sliders are literally self driving taxis you can call.
This man has no original ideas. We knew that already though.
Such a great classic. Loved those Bowie concerts
As if I needed another reason to not not drive to/in Texas
