Robotaxis

Madrid is preparing to have robotaxis this fall. The problem is that almost no one is clear how it is going to work.

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Madrid is about to become the first capital of the European Union with driverless cars circulating through its streets. Uber, Waymo, Cabify and several Chinese technology companies are already fighting for a million-dollar business that, according to current plans, should begin rolling out after the summer. Although there are still quite a few questions unresolved. What is happening. Uber was the first to announce the movement. In June confirmed an alliance with the Chinese technology company WeRide to operate in Madrid sensorized electric vans manufactured by Geely, the Chinese giant that also owns Volvo Cars or Polestar. To make it possible, Uber relies on two partners: Moove Cars, which provides the VTC licenses (of which Uber itself owns 30%), and Avomo, which is responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the vehicles and which already manages similar fleets in Austin and Atlanta. The legal framework. To launch a service of this type, three pieces were needed: regulation, licenses and fleet. According to share From El Confidencial, the first two were “the most conflictive” and had already been resolved, so now “it is the companies that have to take the step.” So, on the one hand, the DGT is in charge of homologating and technically certifying vehicles, while the Community of Madrid manages authorizations, insurance and the distribution of licenses between operators, based on changes in the regional Mobility Law. To avoid new conflicts with taxis, the regional government has chosen not to issue new VTC licenses, but rather to reuse existing ones with a limit of 100, to which a specific permit called “additional authorization for autonomous transport” will be added. According to El Confidencial sources, they point because the first pilots could start in central Madrid, Leganés and Móstoles, with Alcobendas also on the table. The Waymo mystery. Alphabet subsidiary has registered In just two weeks new companies in Paris, Amsterdam and Madrid (Waymo Iberia), adding to the one it already had in Munich since June. The name chosen for Spain, “Iberia” and not “España”, suggests that the company is also looking at Portugal, which has recently opened a legal framework favorable to autonomous driving tests. Even so, the commercial registration is only the first step, so it does not give us clues about a possible launch date, since to operate in Spain Waymo needs VTC licenses. Of the country’s three large fleets (Moove Cars, Auro and Vecttor), the first is already committed to Uber and WeRide, and Auro has confirmed that it is not negotiating with Waymo because it is focused on its expansion in Germany. This leaves as the only plausible way an agreement with Vecttor, the fleet owned by Cabify, which acknowledges maintaining “open conversations with the leading companies in autonomous mobility technology”, although it clarifies that, for the moment, “we do not have any closed alliance.” The Phoenix precedent, where Waymo just broke their alliance with Uber to recover its cars and operate with its own app, suggests that its long-term plan is to dispense with intermediaries as soon as it gains its own brand in each market. What Uber doesn’t count. The company announced in style that its robotaxis would arrive in Madrid before the end of the year, but for our part we did not receive a response from either Uber or WeRide about how many vehicles there will be in the first phase, whether the service will cover the entire city or just some neighborhoods, or whether any user will be able to order a car without anyone at the wheel. On the other hand, the DGT itself confirmed us last month that there was no request from Uber or its partners to test autonomous vehicles. The organization remembers that there are three test phases: a controlled one (maximum three cars, always with a safety driver), an extensive one (up to ten, also with a driver) and a pre-deployment phase, where the vehicle limit disappears and the driver becomes optional, although always supervised remotely. Right now, the only company in that last phase in Spain is Tesla, which test your FSD system with 30 vehicles throughout the national territory. The risks that Waymo already knows. Just like stand out From El Confidencial, the experience in the United States leaves two clear warnings. The first is vandalism, since in June, anti-ICE protesters burned five Waymo vehicles in Los Angeles, each valued between 150,000 and 200,000 euros, forcing the suspension of service in the city. The second, more serious for the business, are technical failures. And in just one month, Waymo had to first recall 3,800 cars for entering flooded roads and then 3,900 (97% of its fleet) for a software error that led them to sections of highway under construction. Despite this, the company defends that its cars suffer 94% fewer serious or fatal accidents than those driven by humans, and 84% fewer accidents with cyclists or motorcyclists. And now what. The calendar indicates that, starting in November, the first Uber robotaxis will begin to be seen in Madrid, with a safety driver at the wheel during the first months until the service becomes fully autonomous. The routes will be requested from each operator’s app and the cost is still unknown, but they are expected to be more expensive. Waymo is still a sea of ​​doubts, since it has a company created, but it still lacks a fleet partner to start. And at the bottom of the board we have Cabify and Bolt, who could be added later with vehicles from the Chinese companies Pony.ai or Baidu. Cover image | Hoseung Han In Xataka | A veteran Tesla engineer has summarized his workers’ feelings about the FSD: “We have all seen it fail”

This is how Shenzhen taxi drivers define the new law that gives the green light to more robotaxis in the city

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In Shenzhen, China, self-driving taxis can already be seen driving on the streets (in fact, We recently rode one), but at the moment they are part of pilot programs and are a minority compared to the thousands of taxis driven by humans. That’s about to change. what’s happening. Since July 1, the Chinese government has approved the deployment of robotaxis in the city of Shenzhen. As we said, there are currently pilot programs such as those of Pony.ai, the taxi we tested, and also of Baidu in specific areas of the city. With the new legislationthese commercial pilot projects can be expanded to the entire city. Taxi drivers against. Logically, taxi drivers oppose this measure. In Financial Times collect the statements of several of these taxi drivers, who describe the measure as “incredibly cruel” and wonder “what will happen to the families who depend on the millions of taxi drivers in China.” Another of these taxi drivers affirms that “it is a capitalist operation, driven by personal profit, that seeks to monopolize the sector.” A saturated market. Being a taxi driver in Shenzhen is not exactly a lucrative job. Around 400,000 drivers work in the city through different platforms such as Didi, the most popular of all. The problem is that there are too many taxi drivers for too few customers and the average is 13 trips a day. Speaking to the Financial Times, one of these taxi drivers claims to work 12 hours a day to earn a salary of 12,000 yuan, about 1,500 euros. Human service vs machines. In an already stressed sector, many taxi drivers are worried that robotaxis will take away even more customers. On the other hand, others are calmer and believe that a robotaxi cannot match the service that a human driver can provide. Furthermore, there is another issue and that is that not all customers will feel comfortable riding in a driverless taxi. It is a very new technology that generates distrust in many people, but that is now. “in a few years, who knows?” says a driver. Automation. It is one of China’s solutions to the unstoppable aging of its population. The UN projections They anticipate China’s population and workforce will decline dramatically between now and 2100, in some scenarios to less than half of their current levels. Given this situation, added to a improvement in working conditions of the workers, we are seeing how factories are filled with robots. The consequence is obvious: more unemployment and an entire generation of young people disconnected from the culture of effort that elevated the country to its status as the factory of the world. You can’t have everything. Image | Amparo Babiloni, Xataka In Xataka | Faced with the inevitable aging of its population, China has made a familiar decision: raise the retirement age

Uber is going to put robotaxis in Madrid this year. The DGT’s response: we’ll see

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Robotaxis will arrive in Madrid before the end of the year. That is the headline you can read in the vast majority of media outlets. This is what Uber has made known, that has published the advertisement on your own website. There’s just one small problem: very few things are clear. The advertisement. With a press release that you can read on their own website. This is how Uber has announced that its robotaxis, in collaboration with WeRide and Avomo, will arrive in Madrid. In their press release they talk about collaboration with the regional government and the intention to launch the service before the end of the year. And little else. The information provided by the company about the project is, basically, that. It is barely mentioned that this is a pilot project and that they are willing to add “hundreds of robotaxis” as “key performance milestones are met” to “expand the commercial driverless taxi service to all urban areas.” many doubts. However, in the information that has been published there are many doubts that remain unresolved. In Xataka We have contacted Uber and WeRide but as of this writing we have not received answers to the following questions: How many cars will be available in the first phase? Will it be a service open to the entire city or will it be limited to specific neighborhoods in Madrid? Do Uber and WeRide already have permission to operate cars without a person on board? Will anyone be able to request a driverless vehicle to reach their destination? What the DGT says. The one who has answered our questions is the DGT. The organization assures us that they have no evidence that Uber or any other company associated with this project has requested permission to carry out tests of autonomous driverless cars. They also emphasize that, at this time, the companies in charge can only operate in “Test Mode” and, of course, “as long as they have been authorized to do so.” The latter, according to the DGT, has not occurred. What are the deadlines approved by the DGT? In its statement, Uber only mentions driverless vehicles but the DGT It refers us to the phases already approved to be able to carry out this type of tests. In these phases the most important points are the following: Controlled phase: no more than three autonomous cars and always with a safety operator behind the wheel. Extensive phase: no more than 10 vehicles and always with an operator behind the wheel. Pre-deployment phase: the limit of 10 vehicles is eliminated and the operator behind the wheel is optional but always has to supervise a remote operator. Right now, the only company that is in the “pre-deployment” phase is Tesla that is carrying out the tests of their FSD with 30 vehicles and have freedom of movement throughout the national territory. In collaboration with the Community of Madrid. In the text published by Uber it is mentioned that the arrival of the robotaxis to Madrid will be carried out “in collaboration with the Government of the Community of Madrid.” In Xataka We have tried to contact this party but have not received a response either. And, let’s talk about roads of regional or municipal ownership, the DGT has to give the go-ahead to be able to carry out this type of tests on Spanish soil. At first, from Expansion It was pointed out that two other municipalities, in addition to Madrid, would join the arrival of the aforementioned robotaxis and that companies such as Cabify or Bolt have also shown interest. At the moment, there is no more news on this. Europe. While in the United States and China the use of robotaxis is beginning to be normalized, Europe continues to be a forbidden field for them. Tesla has been pushing for some time your FSD is approvedpublishing videos collected in their tests in spaces as complicated to manage as Paris, Rome… or Madrid. The other test that had caught attention is the pilot project that is taking place in Zagrev (Croatia). There, 10 Arcfox Alpha T5 cars from the Chinese manufacturer BAIC offer commercial driverless taxi services, powered by the Chinese artificial intelligence company Pony.AI. Beyond. In China, as we say, the use of robotaxis is beginning to be widespread. Baidu’s Apollo Go, WeRide and Pony.AI have driverless vehicles that offer commercial services in cities such as Wuhan, Beijing, Shenzhen or Shanghai. However, the Chinese government itself is slowing down the arrival of automation in private passenger cars, especially after accidents involving some cars that had driving assistance functions active. In the United States, San Francisco and Texas or Los Angeles are the big places where autonomous taxis are tested. However, as the DGT suggests, the tests there began with humans at the wheel. And in some cases the service is limited in space and does not reach the entire city. Some doubts. The robotaxis service is one of the sectors that has moved and leveraged the most money in recent years. Also the one who has frustrated the most promises and money has burned. Billions of euros later and after a decade of intensive developmentits availability remains exceptional. Furthermore, robotaxis continue to generate doubts in the user. Transversal doubts from the moral dilemma to the purely practical debate. And in cities like San Francisco, the service is seen by many as an enemy not only for its ability to eliminate human jobs, but also for the problems that arise on a daily basis in case of facing an unforeseen event or, simply, if a blackout occurs. And in China they have also verified What happens when a system failure occurs and a hundred robotaxis are frozen in the middle of traffic. Some, frozen in the middle of a road with traffic on both sides. Photo | Jordi Moncasi and Uber In Xataka | Waymo’s self-driving cars have started honking at each other. At 4 in the morning

Europe has been a spectator of robotaxis for years. Madrid has just decided that it is okay

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The robotaxis They have already landed in some cities around the world, but their use is still testimonial. Even more so in Europealthough everything indicates that soon we will be talking more and more about this type of vehicles. In fact, just as they count In Expansión, in Madrid we are going to see the very first pilot test in December of autonomous taxis with the main VTC platforms on the market. It will be the first real-scale pilot test of the European Union. What has happened. In the last quarter of this year, the Community of Madrid will launch the first EU robotaxis pilot project with real passengers. Uber, Cabify and Bolt will participate in the initiative, although the call is open to more companies with which it is already negotiating. The test will start in Madrid capital and two other municipalities yet to be confirmed, with routes in previously defined and controlled areas. Just like share From the middle, the initial fleet will be between 50 and 100 vehicles with level 5 automation, that is, without the need for a human driver at the wheel. Why is it a milestone? Until now, no European city had launched a project of such magnitude. The only previous experience in the EU was a very limited test in Zagreb with just two vehicles. The rest of the world is years ahead, and the fact is that Waymo already operates about 3,000 autonomous cars in American cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles or Phoenix and has accumulated more than 20 million journeys. in Chinacompanies such as Apollo Go (Baidu), Pony.ai and WeRide have more than 5,500 vehicles in circulation. Europe, on the other hand, had not yet taken the step. How the pilot will work. According to share From Expansión, in a first phase, the vehicles will have a human supervisor on board whose function will be to monitor the automated driving system and inform users about the technology. After a few weeks, and depending on the data collected, we will move on to the driverless phase. To do this, the user will reserve the car from their mobile phone, access the vehicle with their phone and arrive at their destination without anyone in the driver’s seat. Among the vehicle manufacturers that could participate are Jaguar, the Stellantis group and the Chinese brand Arcfox (of the BAIC group). From the media they indicate that the technological operators will be already established companies such as WeRide, Baidu, Pony.ai or Waymo. Legislation. The General Directorate of Traffic has been working since 2015 in a legal framework for automated vehiclesand the Community of Madrid has promoted the creation of the Office for Vehicles and Automated Mobility (OFVA). The pilot has, in this sense, the mission of collecting real usage data to then lay the foundations for future legislation on autonomous transport in Spain. The protocols include specific training for police, firefighters and emergency services. Anabel Díaz, vice president of Uber for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, counted to Expansión that Madrid has “the opportunity to be at the forefront of Europe.” Deployment in Europe. A few months ago, Lyft announced an alliance with the Chinese Baidu to launch robotaxis in the United Kingdom and Germany throughout 2026. Uber, for its part, already has agreements with more than 18 autonomous driving companies globally. Europe is rapidly becoming the next battlefield for autonomous transportation, and the large platforms know that whoever arrives first with regulatory muscle will have an advantage. And now what. The success of the test will depend on whether the data collected is sufficient to build a solid regulation, that users show reasonable acceptance of the technology, and that the companies that intend to participate want to continue investing in the technology. Uber has already indicated that plans to make large investments in this field in Madrid. All eyes are now on the project, as Spain could become a reference laboratory for robotaxis, like the rest of the European capitals that are already on the eve of landing the technology. We’ll see how everything turns out. Cover image | Amy Dugiere In Xataka | China has been boasting about its driverless robotaxis for years. Until more than 100 have stood at once in Wuhan

a man just discovered that robotaxis can do it too

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It is an automatic thought when we check a suitcase: please don’t let me lose it. The airlines They have improved baggage managementbut millions of incidents continue to be recorded every year and it is something that has happened to practically all of us who have taken a few planes. What is not so common is that the person who loses your suitcase is a robotaxi, or rather we should say the one who steals it from you. what has happened. They tell it in Futurism. A few days ago, a man ordered a Waymo robotaxi to go to the San Jose airport in California. The journey went well, it was upon arriving at the airport that the problem arose. The passenger was able to get out of the taxi without problem, but when he tried to open the trunk to retrieve his suitcase, it did not open and the robotaxi left, leaving him without the luggage that he had prepared for his trip. Waym’s responseeither. The first thing the passenger, whose name is Di Jin, did was call Waymo customer service in the hopes they could get the taxi back with his suitcase. However, the person who assisted him told him that the car was on its way to the warehouse and that it was impossible to change its route. Jin decided to take the plane anyway and later tried to get Waymo to send his luggage, but the response was that he had to go pick it up himself. In statements to NBCJin states that “It doesn’t make any sense because it wasn’t my mistake (…) I pressed the button to open the trunk and it just didn’t work” Why is it important. When autonomous driving is questioned, we often focus on safety and overlook incidents like this. What happened to this passenger perfectly illustrates that there is a whole dimension of failures more focused on user experience in unexpected situations. These are errors that a human driver resolves intuitively and quickly, but in this case it became a very complicated situation full of obstacles. The problem is not just security. In China, a system failure caused more than 100 taxis will stop in the middle of the city. In California, several passengers were trapped inside a Waymo because a passerby attacked the car and it crashed. Self-driving taxis have proven to be a safe and effective means of transportation, myself I tried one a few days ago in China and I was surprised how integrated it is into the dense city traffic. What we are seeing most lately are not so much accidents, but problems of this type more related to practical problems that do not affect a taxi with a driver. Image | Xataka In Xataka | The robotaxis did not need a driver, but Waymo has ended up paying delivery drivers to close ajar doors

Taxis have always had four seats. With robotaxis that no longer makes sense.

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When Tesla taught the Cybercabthere was a detail that was obvious even before talking about autonomy, sensors or commercial deployment: I only had two seats. It was not a minor decision. For decades we have associated the taxi with a car capable of carrying four passengers, with its driver in front and a back seat designed for almost everything. That’s why that model without a steering wheel or pedals seemed, at the very least, a rarity. Now, seeing what we have seen later, that image begins to have another reading. The interesting thing is not only that we are talking about driverless cars, but about vehicles that can be thought of differently from the first moment. The traditional taxi took advantage of a well-known architecture: four or five seats, a driving position and a body prepared for very varied uses. On the other hand, a robotaxi designed for a fleet can ask a more precise and specific question: what do most journeys require? The answer appears when we look at how these services are used. Some time ago, Lucid’s Marc Winterhoff and Uber’s Andrew Macdonald, they pointed out that more than 90% of the journeys Uber offers only one or two passengers. This proportion helps to understand why two-seater robotaxis are beginning to appear in more projects. It is not advisable to turn this information into a universal rule, because each city, service and use case has its nuances. In that context, Tesla’s proposal fits better. The Cybercab is not planned as a conventional car to which autonomous driving is simply added, but as a vehicle designed to operate, if Tesla manages to deploy it as promised, within a transportation network without a human driver. Hence it dispenses with a steering wheel and pedals, and reduces the cabin to two occupants. The firm led by Elon Musk presents it as a specific piece for safe point-to-point travel. Tesla is not the only one who has reached a similar conclusion. Lucid showed in March 2026 Lunara two-seater robotaxi concept without steering wheel or pedals, although it should be stressed that we are talking about a conceptual proposal and not a product ready to hit the streets. Verne, the Croatian company linked to Mate Rimac, also previously presented a two-seater electric autonomous vehicle. Lucid Lunar The logic behind these designs is not only spatial, it is also economic. A smaller vehicle may require fewer materials, move less weight and consume less energy per trip, something especially relevant when we talk about fleets that should circulate many hours a day. Lucid, for example, presents Lunar as a vehicle designed to be as efficient and cheap as possible for fleet operators. The company projects an efficiency of 8.9–9.7 km per kWh in typical use, although these are figures from a conceptual proposal and not from an already deployed fleet. Furthermore, the change is not limited to the size of each vehicle. It also affects the way we imagine fleets. A study by Boesch, Ciari and Axhausenlinked to ETH Zurich, modeled a specific scenario in Zurich and concluded that, if waiting times of up to 10 minutes were accepted and adoption was sufficiently wide, a fleet of shared autonomous vehicles could very significantly reduce the total number of cars needed, even up to 90% in certain conditions. It is not a universal recipe, but it is an important clue: the robotaxi not only rethinks the seat, but also the scale of the system. So we could say that the four-seater taxi will continue to make sense for many uses, and the fleets of the future will probably need to combine different vehicles. The novelty is that the robotaxi allows each need to be better separated. For individual or two-person trips, a smaller model may be sufficient, more efficient and easier to justify within an on-demand network. What a few years ago seemed like a strange decision begins to fit with another way of looking at mobility: not always designing for the maximum possible, but for what happens most of the time. Images | JavyGo | Maxim In Xataka | Xiaomi CEO has a message for the world: the “cheap electric car” may never arrive

Tesla robotaxis are autonomous, except when driven by a man from Texas

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Taking a trip in an autonomous taxi is an unsettling feeling of a future that is already here. However, even if the driver’s seat is empty, we now know that sometimes there is a person at the controls who is controlling it remotely. It happened recently with Waymo and now we have learned that Tesla does it too. Self-employed, sometimes. They count in Futurism that Tesla has recognized (after being required by the US Senate) that it has human operators who can take complete control of the vehicle in certain situations. These operators are located at the headquarters in Austin, Texas, or Palo Alto, California. Exceptional situations. As explained in the letter sent to the Senate, this is “As a security measure in exceptional cases (…) as a last resort once all other available intervention actions have been exhausted.” When this remote mode is activated, the operator cannot exceed 16 kilometers per hour. For example, it is used if the vehicle is stuck on a road. Why is it important. Self-driving taxi companies like Waymo and, now, Tesla, have gone to great lengths to hide these types of remote interventions because it is a way of admitting that we are far from 100% autonomous driving. At the beginning of the year, Elon Musk boasted that their robotaxis were circulating without a safety monitor, but shortly after we learned that what they had really done was converting that safety monitor into a vehicle with a driver that followed each robotaxi. The Waymo case. The leading robotaxis company in the US was the first to recognize human intervention in driving their cars. It also happened as a result of authorities’ scrutiny of its technology. However, unlike Tesla’s system in which the human takes full control of the vehicle, in Waymo the human intervenes to guide the stuck vehicle, but does not drive it directly. The workers who carry out these interventions do so from the Philippines. Risks and criticisms. Tesla speaks of “exceptional cases”, but refused to give details about the frequency of these interventions, which for the Senate was insufficient since remote driving entails significant risks. If, for example, there is latency in the network, it would cause a delay in the remote driver’s orders and may have consequences. Tesla defends itself by arguing that revealing that information would “reveal highly sensitive trade secrets and confidential business practices” that Tesla needs to maintain its “competitive position in the autonomous vehicle industry.” Image | Xataka In Xataka | The robotaxis did not need a driver, but Waymo has ended up paying delivery drivers to close ajar doors

China has been boasting about its driverless robotaxis for years. Until more than 100 have stood at once in Wuhan

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The screen inside said: “Driving system failure. Staff will arrive in five minutes.” But no one came. The passenger pressed the SOS button and was told they were on their way, but it took 30 minutes just to get someone to pick up the phone. Meanwhile, the robotaxi was still stopped in the middle of a lane in Wuhan, with traffic passing on both sides. That is what happened on the night of Tuesday, April 1, in the Chinese city of Wuhan: More than a hundred autonomous cars from Apollo Go, Baidu’s robotaxis subsidiary, have stopped working at the same time due to a system failure. It is the first time that a collective robotaxis blackout has occurred in China, and it has exposed a concern that the sector has been avoiding for some time. Why is it important. Baidu is not a minor player. Apollo Go operates more than 1,000 robotaxis in Wuhan alone, its largest deployment, and has already accumulated more than 20 million trips in its history. The company just started in Abu Dhabi and Dubaithe two large cities of the United Arab Emirates; It is negotiating its entry into the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and has an agreement with Uber to operate through its app. An incident of this magnitude doesn’t come at any time: it comes when the company, like its entire sector, is trying to convince the world that it is ready to scale. Between the lines. Technically, the incident could be explained in many ways. Some Chinese media cited anonymous sources who pointed to the security self-verification systems, which would have detected some abnormal condition and stopped the vehicles preventively. If this were the case, the system would have worked exactly as designed, but the result has been chaotic: cars stopped in the center lanes of expressways, some passengers trapped for more than 90 minutes, collisions caused by vehicles that suddenly braked on highways… That no one has been injured is almost a matter of luck. The contrast. It is not the only precedent. In December 2025, A power outage in San Francisco left Waymo robotaxis immobilized throughout the cityforcing Waymo to send software updates for its entire fleet. Months before, in August, An Apollo Go fell into a ditch in Chongqing; in may, a Pony.ai car caught fire in Beijingwithout causing injuries. It’s easy to see a certain pattern: large-scale autonomous driving has not yet achieved the reliability it needs to justify the trust that is being asked of the public. And now what. Cars stopping is a problem, but an even bigger problem is that no one knows why. Baidu has not explained what caused the failure or how long it took to resolve it. Wuhan police have confirmed the incident but without giving further details about the cause. This opacity weighs as much or more than the incident, especially if we talk about a sector that has been arguing for years that its cars are safer than those driven by humans. We assume that is very true, but block failures like this do not invite optimism without questions. Featured image | Baidu-Apollo In Xataka | Waymo’s self-driving cars have started honking at each other. At 4 in the morning

Waymo robotaxis stop if someone gets in front of them. That’s fine until the passenger suffers the consequences.

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That an autonomous car stops if it detects a person nearby is not just a function, it is the most basic thing to make it safe. The problem is when the person nearby is not simply crossing a pedestrian crossing, but is trying to attack passengers. This is what happened in San Francisco in January. The incident. They tell it in the New York Times. Last January, three passengers were returning home in a Waymo robotaxi when a man suddenly stepped in front of the vehicle and began banging on the windows while berating them for “giving money to a robot.” If it had been a normal car, they could have reversed and avoided the man, but what happened was that the car was blocked with them inside while the attacker continued to threaten them. The incident lasted at least six minutes. Waymo, help us. During the incident, the passengers called the police and then the Waymo helpline to see if they could manually steer the car to get them out of there. However, the company told them that this was not possible because there was a person nearby and the software did not allow it, but that they would be fine because the doors were closed. Speaking to the New York Times, one of the passengers states that “If I had kept hitting a single window instead of alternating, I’m sure I would have broken it in the end.” Why is it important. The Waymo robotaxis have been integrated into the life of cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, but although their use has been normalized, they are also the subject of strong opposition from a sector of the population. Since the appearance of the first robotaxis there have been protests against this technology and have also suffered damage in demonstrations for other reasons. Last summer, during the anti-ICE protests, Protesters burned several Waymo in Los Angeles claiming they were spy cars (Waymo has shared images from its car cameras with police in the past). It is not the first incident. There have been other similar situations of Waymo vehicles vandalized while there were passengers inside, or cases like that of this woman who was trapped while two men outside asked him for his phone. And there have been more controversies, such as the run over of a well-known San Francisco cat or the day there was a blackout and dozens of robotaxis were left strandedblocking the streets. Security. On your websiteWaymo boasts that its cars have 90% fewer accidents with serious injuries and 92% fewer accidents with pedestrians. Obviously the most important thing is to ensure safe driving, but incidents like these show that there are more angles from which to understand safety than just avoiding accidents. Image | Waymo In Xataka | With Waymo’s autonomous cars we are reaching a legal absurdity: driverless violations

The robotaxis did not need a driver, but Waymo has ended up paying delivery drivers to close ajar doors

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What until not long ago seemed the exclusive province of science fiction is beginning to become visible on the streets: cars capable of moving from one point to another without a driver. And you don’t need to buy one to live the experience. In some cities around the world, it is enough to order a robotaxi from an application and see how the vehicle arrives to pick you up, identifying you in certain models with your initials on an LED screen located on the roof, as our colleague Javier Lacort confirmed in San Francisco almost two years ago. Futuristic scene, present problems. In the midst of this transformation of transportation, which aims to offer more safety and comfort, its weak points are also beginning to emerge. We don’t talk about the jams caused by connectivity failures nor of those cars that, for some reason, They start honking their horn at four in the morning. The issue is even more basic: if a user closes the door incorrectly, the vehicle cannot continue operating. The problem is not driving, it is being able to leave. In the case described by CNBC and TechCrunchare blocked if, at the end of the trip, a passenger leaves a door ajar. Waymo confirmed to both media that this detail prevents the car from resuming travel and completing new routes until someone closes it correctly. This is a basic, almost domestic friction that turns a simple oversight into an operational problem and explains why the company has to resort to human support to return its vehicles to service as soon as possible. Pay delivery people. The company is testing a system in Atlanta that alerts nearby delivery drivers of applications such as DoorDash when one of their vehicles is left with the door open. The proposal is simple: approach, close it and allow the robotaxi to operate again. The media even cites the case of a driver who was offered $11.25 for that specific task. They also detail a similar order divided between $6.25 for travel and another $5 after verifying the closure. It is not an isolated case. The Atlanta pilot is not the only example of this specific dependence on human help. Waymo has also turned to users of honka roadside assistance platform, to resolve similar situations in other American cities. In this case, some collaborators received offers of up to $24 to close the door of a stopped robotaxi. More than a local anecdote, these examples draw a clear operational pattern: when the vehicle is immobilized due to a minor detail, the quickest solution is still to send a person. Automatic doors, on the way. Today Waymo operates with a fleet made up entirely of electric vehicles Jaguar I-PACE adapted for autonomous driving, which still depend on human intervention in situations like this. But the company owned by Google assures that this gap has an expiration date, although without specifying it: it announced that its future robotaxis will have automatic closing. Meanwhile, the present of the autonomous car continues to show that double face: sophistication in driving and human dependence on the simplest details. Images | Xataka In Xataka | When San Francisco suffered a blackout, its streets were plunged into chaos for a reason: dumped self-driving cars

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