San Francisco's fire chief is fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks. And LA is next
Robotaxis keep tangling with firefighters on the streets of San Francisco, and the fire chief is fed up.
"They're not ready for prime time," Chief Jeanine Nicholson said.
Nicholson is talking about the driverless taxis from Waymo and Cruise that are picking up passengers and dropping them off in designated sections of the city. Now those companies want to rapidly expand service throughout the entire city, in unlimited numbers, in any kind of weather, day or night. And state regulators appear ready to approve their request.
City leaders are worried — not only in San Francisco, but in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, too, where Waymo and another robotaxi company, Motional, say they're ready to deploy their AI-operated robotaxi service as soon as state regulators flash the green light.
The robotaxi industry is being allowed to move too fast and break things, these officials say, putting more robotaxis on public streets even as they prove inept at dealing with firetrucks, ambulances and police cars. And, they say, California
