And where are we with robotaxis and self-driving cars?

I confess I had written off self-driving cars completely several years ago, after a series of accidents and the admission that, actually, self-driving cars were not as easy as initially predicted, and that maybe some problems (including those tricky moral ones) maybe forever outside the purview of computers.

But, undeterred, some companies have persisted with the idea, with mixed results. The biggest, best-known ones are Tesla's Robotaxi (which uses its popular Model Y cars) and Google/Alphabet's Waymo (which uses the sexier Jaguar i-Pace sports utility vehicle). But other companies are also in with a shout, including Uber's Avride, Amazon's Zoox, Volkswagen, and Aurora's driverless trucks. (Some companies, like GM, have retreated from their autonomous car aspirations.)

They are progressing, if slowly, although Tesla in particular is progressing much slower than Mr. Musk led us to believe. It has a modest 30 Robotaxis operating in Austin, Texas (which seems to be ground zero for autonomous car testing), and they all have a human in the passenger seat monitoring them, for now at least. That's a far cry from Musk's 2016 promise of cars driving themselves across the country within two years, and his 2019 promise of a million Robotaxis on the road within a year. 

Google's Waymo fleet is larger (Google actually started its self-driving car research well before Tesla), with about 200 vehicles in Austin, and another 2,300 in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Atlanta, with plans to extend to 20 more cities in 2026, including Dallas, Washington, Miami, and London, England. Waymos operate without human monitors.

Mr. Musk is still saying that, after a slow, cautious start, Tesla will overtake Waymo and, for some reason, many deep-pocketed investors seem to believe him. Millions of Teslas on the road today have the hardware to convert into self-driving vehicles with just a tweak of the software. Plus, Tesla's system relies solely on cameras (lots of cameras), while Waymo and other companies use a combination of cameras, radar and laser sensors. Cameras alone are a cheaper solution, but they can easily be flummoxed by fog, snow, glare and other factors, and many commentators see Tesla's fixation with cameras as a severe limitation, especially as the cost of radar and laser sensors continues to fall.

It's far from clear that self-driving cars and taxis will ever generate trillions of dollars in revenue, as Musk insists, or that they will ever achieve profitability. There are many hidden overheads, like manned monitoring centres, special cleaning, etc, that are rarely mentioned. Power outages, as occurred in San Francisco recently, are also a potential issue, as self-driving cars grind to halt in that eventuality. They still have problems understanding hand signals, and have often been reported ignoring police officers, firefighters and emergency workers trying to direct traffic (and even, in numerous occasions, ignoring a school bus' signals), resulting in some close calls. A driverless Waymo tax in Scottsdale, Arizona went AWOL earlier this year, and started spinning in circles in a parking lot, with the hapless passenger locked in. Although no deaths for some time...

UPDATE

Of course, these are just the Western/American developments. As you might imagine, China is way ahead on this stuff. Baidu's Apollo Go driverless taxi service has been operating in dozens of colors in China for some time now, and has accumulated millions of driverless rides. Ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft have recently announced partnerships with Baidu, and Chinese robotaxis are expected to hit the streets of London and other western cities next year.