Three teenagers were sitting on the edges of its open windows, their heads bobbing above the roof. One of them pointed at the empty front seat of my car. “Who’s driving?” he yelled. “No one,” I yelled back.
It was about 9 p.m. on a cool Tuesday evening in San Francisco in September when I hailed a car outside a restaurant a few blocks from Golden Gate Park.
Remember the iconic, tire-squealing chase scene in “Bullitt,” the Steve McQueen movie from the 1960s? Now, imagine the opposite, and you’ll have a sense of how the car cautiously drove up and down San Francisco’s hills, gingerly navigated four-way stops and angled around double-parked cars. Someday, you, too, could ride in a truly driverless car. Cruise, which expects to expand its services to Austin, Texas, and Phoenix by the end of the year, is among the companies now developing robot taxi services in major American cities. Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, is preparing a second service in San Francisco. Argo AI, backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is at work in Austin and Miami. Motional, backed by Hyundai, is focused on Las Vegas.
Each new service requires months of preparation and testing — not to mention negotiations with state officials. And, even after extensive testing, these cars are bound to encounter situations that they just don’t know how to handle. For Cruise and other companies, the question is: What happens then?Earlier in the evening, Cruise held a small event for reporters at its headquarters in downtown San Francisco.
The Prius, which was traveling at about 40 mph in a 25 mph zone, was partly responsible for the collision, according to an accident report. The incident showed the kind of sticky situation that driverless cars inevitably face on urban streets. Federal regulators recalled Cruise’s software, while Cruise suspended unprotected left-hand turns across its fleet and updated its technology designed to handle similar situations.My trip began at a neighborhood restaurant called Bistro Central Parc.
The ride was by turns spooky, impressive, perplexing and a little stressful. It was kind of like being in the car with my 16-year-old daughter when she was learning to drive — but more unnerving because my daughter could at least respond to my moments of panic.
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