A day after California gave the green light to a massive expansion of driverless robotaxis in San Francisco, the implications became clear.
At about 11 p.m. Friday, up to 10 Cruise driverless taxis blocked two narrow streets in the center of North Beach's bustling bar and restaurant district. All traffic was stopped on Vallejo Street and on two corners of Grant. The human-driven cars were trapped behind and between the robotic axles, which might as well have been rocks: no one knew how to move them.
The cars sat motionless with their parking lights on for 15 minutes, then woke up and drove on, witnesses said.
A pedestrian counts 10 blocked Cruise robotaxis in North Beach on Friday night.
Aaron Peskin, who represents North Beach on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, fears what could happen when a major fire or other life-threatening emergency breaks out and multiple robotaxis block the road. “Our houses in North Beach are made of sticks,” he said. Peskin was inundated with text messages, emails and videos from constituents as the robotaxis, programmed with artificial intelligence software, remained unresponsive. In one video, focusing on the “driver” seat of a robotaxi, a man says “this is what our country has come to.”
Cruise blamed cell phone carriers for the problem. At 11:01 p.m. on Friday, Peskin sent a text message to Cruise's government affairs manager, Lauren Wilson. At 8:25 a.m. Saturday, she responded: “As I understand it, the outer lands affected LTE cellular connectivity and the ability of RA advisors to route cars.” Outside Lands is a three-day music festival held in Golden Gate Park, four miles from North Beach.
The situation is fraught with irony, as the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday voted 3-1 amid much public controversy to allow a massive robotaxi expansion. The vote allows Cruise, owned by General Motors, and Waymo, owned by Google's Alphabet, to charge fees for driverless service and grow the fleet as much as they want. Cruise has said it plans to eventually deploy thousands of robotaxis in San Francisco.
San Francisco city officials, from the mayor's office on down, have been fighting the measure, with officials saying the robotaxi industry needs to first fix the problems that endanger the public before expanding the service further. business. The city's Fire Department has recorded more than 55 cases of robotaxis interfering with first responders. Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson has repeatedly said that Cruise and Waymo are getting in the way of firefighters and that their technology is “not ready for prime time.”
The CPUC decided to move forward anyway. One of the three yes votes was cast by Commissioner John Reynolds, who served as chief counsel on Cruise before being appointed to the CPUC by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The dissenting vote came from Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma, who said companies should explain the problems and how they plan to fix them first.
North Beach resident Jeffrey Bilbrey watches the line of brick robotaxis from his apartment window. “This is what our country has come to,” says a man inspecting a stranded robotaxi.
Peskin said city officials are pursuing “every avenue” to overturn the CPUC's decision and are discussing whether to seek an injunction. Another option: fine Cruise and Waymo thousands of dollars for each robotaxi roadblock.
The CPUC and Governor Gavin Newsom, in Peskin's view, are putting a lot of money ahead of basic public safety. The CPUC “has not been held in high esteem by the people of California for a long time,” Peskin said. All five CPUC commissioners were appointed by Newsom, including Cruise's former lawyer.
“If you're looking for an example of regulatory capture, you're seeing it now,” Peskin said. “It's unethical and immoral, but it's legal,” she said. “Simply put, this all goes to Governor Gavin Christopher Newsom.”
Representatives for Newsom and the CPUC could not immediately be reached for comment. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Cruise said: “We are actively investigating and working on solutions to prevent this from happening again.”
