GM Cruise robotaxis start service in Tesla’s Austin – FSD still nowhere to be found
GM’s Cruise autonomous taxi service has started taking driverless taxi rides in downtown Austin, Texas. It’s a shot across the bow of Tesla, now headquartered just outside of Austin, which has been promising self-driving robotaxis for years now, but keeps pushing them back.
Cruise has been operating a free driverless taxi service in San Francisco since earlier this year, and even started taking paid fares in June. In doing so, it beat its rival, Google’s Waymo, to the punch.
It also beat Tesla to that same goal, which has been talking about autonomous robotaxis (which they used to call “Tesla Network”) for over six years. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said “Tesla will have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of the year,” but later changed that goal to 1 million people in FSD beta.
We got our first real-life glimpse of Cruise’s Austin service in a 7-minute video posted to Twitter last night, which you can watch embedded below:
Cruise’s Austin service is not completely open to the public yet. It’s currently restricted to “friends & family” of Cruise employees, though they are taking actual paid rides, instead of launching with free rides first as they did in San Francisco. You can sign up to get on Cruise’s waitlist here, for when they decide to open up availability further.
Along with service in Austin, Cruise also started service in Phoenix this week. Phoenix is notable because, like Austin, one of Cruise’s competitors has already set up shop there. Waymo has been offering rides to the public in Phoenix since earlier this year, and has previously done some testing in Austin. Waymo also recently started offering airport trips in Phoenix.
This completes Cruise’s goal of having autonomous taxis running in three cities by the end of this year. Prior to now, they had only operated in San Francisco.
Cruise’s service has not been without its problems, though. Early this year one of their cars got pulled over by the police and then “bolted” off, and just last week the NHTSA opened an investigation into Cruise’s vehicles causing accidents, stopping abruptly and blocking roadways.
And these autonomous rides are still quite limited. Cruise and Waymo’s strategy differs from Tesla in that both companies are limiting their vehicles to lower-speed, geofenced areas that have been mapped out ahead of time. Service is also limited to 10 p.m. – 5:30 a.m. Wed-Sun, when streets tend to have fewer drivers and pedestrians, and thus self-driving problems are simpler.
This allows programmers to focus on a more limited set of circumstances, and limit damage in case anything goes wrong, as there are fewer people and objects on the road to cause trouble for if the driverless car has a problem.
But Cruise says that focusing on these similar areas helped them to get their Austin project off the ground quickly. It only took 90 days for them to go from zero mapping to fully autonomous service in Austin, an impressively fast timeline.
Tesla’s focus is on generalized self-driving, rather than being limited to certain areas. This is a much harder problem to solve, because different areas have different road types, signs, rules, driver behaviors, and so on.
Tesla does have a significant lead in some ways – its data collection far outpaces other automakers, for example. But CEO Musk has also been promising various self-driving milestones “by the end of this year” for almost a decade now, and these promises have never panned out. His language around these promises has been changing, but FSD still isn’t living up to expectations.
It’s clearly a complex problem, but Cruise’s shot across Tesla’s – and Waymo’s – bow is a big flex, showing that they consider their autonomous abilities on par with, or better than, their two biggest competitors.
Now we wonder – where will Cruise go next? Maybe Los Angeles, like Waymo recently announced?
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Environment
Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]
![Uber launches true driverless robotaxi operations in the Middle East with WeRide [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/11/Uber-Middle-East-WeRide.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Just over a year after Uber announced a strategic partnership in the Middle East with autonomous vehicle specialist WeRide, the companies have officially begun offering the public robotaxi rides without a driver or safety operator present on board.
Today’s latest milestone involving robotaxi operations in the Middle East dates back to September 2024, when Uber and WeRide initially announced a strategic partnership to bring autonomous rides to the UAE.
Three months later, the partner officially launched autonomous rides in Abu Dhabi, but with a safety operator present in the vehicle. At the time, Uber and WeRide said the supervised rides were “laying the groundwork” for a true driverless commercial operations planned for 2025.
That day has come.
WeRide and Uber have confirmed that commercial robotaxi operations are officially underway in Abu Dhabi without any safety operators on board – a first for the Middle East.
Uber rolls out Middle East robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi
Uber shared details of its latest milestone late this evening or in the afternoon in the Middle East, depending on where you are.
Beginning today (Wednesday) customers in Abu Dhabi can select an UberX or Uber Comfort ride that enables them to be matched with a fully autonomous WeRide robotaxi without a driver inside. Riders in the Middle East can also increase their chances of hailing one of these driverless rides by select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app.
In order to qualify, the prosepctive rider’s route must be part of WeRide’s operating territory in Abu Dhabi and a dedicated WeRide GXR Robotaxi vehicle (seen in the featured image above) must be available.
Similar to Uber’s partnership with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, the global rideshare network will oversee fleet operations for WeRide vehicles, handling end-to end rider support. It has tapped Tawasul Transport to facilitate vehicle cleaning, maintenance, inspections, charging, and depot management. WeRide will remain responsible for vehicle testing.
As you may recall last spring, Uber and WeRide announced an expansion to their strategic partnership beyond the Middle East (although Dubai will be the city for its next robotaxi rollout). Over the next five years, Uber and WeRide intend to deploy true driverless public rides in 15 additional cities, some of which will be in Europe.
As promised, here’s some b-roll footage from Uber showing how riders in Abu Dhabi can order a WeRide robotaxi:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Metro Detroit is about to get a big boost of fast EV chargers, with more than 40 new ChargePoint ports set to come online across multiple sites owned by the Dabaja Brothers Development Group.
The first ultra-fast charging site just opened in Canton, Michigan. It’s owned and operated by Dabaja Brothers, who plan to follow it with additional ChargePoint-equipped locations in Dearborn and Livonia.
“We started this project because we saw a gap in our community – there was almost nowhere to charge an EV in Canton, and a similar lack of charging across metro Detroit,” said Yousef Dabaja, owner/operator at Dabaja Brothers.
Each metro Detroit site will feature ChargePoint Express Plus fast charging stations, which can deliver up to 500 kW to a single port, can fast-charge two vehicles at the same time, and are compatible with all EVs. The stations feature a proprietary cooling system to deliver peak charging speeds for sustained periods, ensuring that charging speed remains consistent.
The stations operate on the new ChargePoint Platform, which enables operators to monitor performance, adjust pricing, troubleshoot issues, and gain real-time insights to keep chargers running smoothly.
Rick Wilmer, CEO at ChargePoint, said, “This initiative will rapidly infill the ‘fast charging deserts’ across the Detroit area, allowing drivers to quickly recharge their vehicles when and where they need to.”
Read more: ChargePoint just gave its EV charging software a major AI upgrade
If you’re looking to replace your old HVAC equipment, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you’re finding a trusted, reliable HVAC installer near you that offers competitive pricing on heat pumps, check out EnergySage. EnergySage is a free service that makes it easy for you to get a heat pump. They have pre-vetted heat pump installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions. Plus, it’s free to use!
Your personalized heat pump quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here. – *ad
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging and Starbucks have officially opened their first DC fast charging hub together, off the I-5 in Red Bluff, California.
The 400 kW Mercedes-Benz chargers are capable of adding up to 300 miles in 10 minutes, depending on the EV, and every stall has both NACS and CCS cables – they’re fully open DC fast chargers.
Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Mercedes-Benz Group and renewable energy producer MN8 Energy, first announced in July 2024 that it would install DC fast chargers at Starbucks stores along Interstate 5, the main 1,400-mile north-south interstate highway on the US West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Ultimately, Mercedes plans to install fast chargers at 100 Starbucks stores across the US.
Mercedes-Benz HPC opened its first North American charging site at Mercedes-Benz USA’s headquarters in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in November 2023 as part of an initial $1 billion charging network investment. As of the end of 2024, Mercedes had deployed over 150 operational fast chargers in the US, but it hasn’t disclosed an official number of how many chargers are currently online.
Andrew Cornelia, CEO of Mercedes-Benz HPC North America, is leaving the company at the end of the month to become global head of electrification & sustainability at Uber.
Read more: Mercedes-Benz is deploying 400 kW US-made EV fast chargers with CCS and NACS cables
If you’re looking to replace your old HVAC equipment, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you’re finding a trusted, reliable HVAC installer near you that offers competitive pricing on heat pumps, check out EnergySage. EnergySage is a free service that makes it easy for you to get a heat pump. They have pre-vetted heat pump installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions. Plus, it’s free to use!
Your personalized heat pump quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here. – *ad
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024