A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.

In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.

But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.

I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.

The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.

The US Department of Transportation has just finalized a new vehicle safety standard that will require all light-duty vehicles to be equipped with a more advanced form of automatic emergency braking (AEB) by 2029. (Light-duty vehicle = pretty much all passenger vehicles, including SUVs and trucks.)

Now, most light-duty vehicles on the road today already have some form of emergency braking. What's noteworthy about this ruling is that it requires a more robust version. Some might say one that works. Specifically, it will need to work at much higher speeds and at night.

Most of the AEB systems in operation today don't really work at night -- basically at all -- and many have shown to be ineffective when it comes to stopping for humans.

This new standard will require vehicles to automatically brake at up to 90 mph when a possible collision with a car is detected and up to 45 mph when a possible collision with a pedestrian is detected.

This seems like a very good thing, especially given the persistent problem we are having with cars killing too many people. But how do we do it?

From what I have read, this new standard will be pretty challenging to meet without the use of long-range LiDAR, especially since night vision is a requirement. I find this interesting because, even though autonomy is taking a lot longer to arrive than most people anticipated, there's still meaningful progress being made.

Here's to hoping it saves a lot of lives.

A few days ago, Waymo announced (on X) that its robotaxis are now doing more than 50,000 paid trips every week across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

This means that the company is getting an average of 300 bookings every hour or five bookings every minute. And if you add in Austin, where it's currently offering a limited number of rides, the company has completed a total of over one million rider-only trips.

In the announcement, Waymo also went on to say that "fully autonomous ride-hailing is a reality and a preferred mobility option for people navigating their cities every day." All of this is something.

But perhaps the most important takeaway, right now, is that the company continues to claim -- by way of a study from Swiss Re -- that its robotaxis are already significantly safer than human-driven vehicles.

I don't personally know if this is true, but it's not hard to believe. I mean, human drivers suck. And assuming it is true, we should all want more robotaxis on the road, because statistically, we would be significantly safer.

The problem, though, is that autonomous vehicles suffer from a perception bias. We're all looking for them to fail. If a robotaxi gets into an accident, it's news. But if a human driver gets into an accident, it's standard operating procedure. It'll be interesting to see how and when this flips.

The US Department of Transportation has just finalized a new vehicle safety standard that will require all light-duty vehicles to be equipped with a more advanced form of automatic emergency braking (AEB) by 2029. (Light-duty vehicle = pretty much all passenger vehicles, including SUVs and trucks.)

Now, most light-duty vehicles on the road today already have some form of emergency braking. What's noteworthy about this ruling is that it requires a more robust version. Some might say one that works. Specifically, it will need to work at much higher speeds and at night.

Most of the AEB systems in operation today don't really work at night -- basically at all -- and many have shown to be ineffective when it comes to stopping for humans.

This new standard will require vehicles to automatically brake at up to 90 mph when a possible collision with a car is detected and up to 45 mph when a possible collision with a pedestrian is detected.

This seems like a very good thing, especially given the persistent problem we are having with cars killing too many people. But how do we do it?

From what I have read, this new standard will be pretty challenging to meet without the use of long-range LiDAR, especially since night vision is a requirement. I find this interesting because, even though autonomy is taking a lot longer to arrive than most people anticipated, there's still meaningful progress being made.

Here's to hoping it saves a lot of lives.