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🌟 Editor's Note
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This Week’s Big Charge
💡 Robotaxis in NYC? Not Everyone’s Saying Yes.
I like to say that I treat driving a car in Manhattan like going to war: You only do it when you absolutely have to, and you expect bad things to happen when you do. But somehow, New York City has become the next great frontier for autonomous taxis.
I knew this would happen … eventually. After all, Waymo—the driverless ride-hail company owned by Google parent company Alphabet—has been expanding into new cities for years now. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bet the future of his company on breaking up with steering wheels, although its Robotaxi service is miles behind Waymo’s.
And while those two companies score many of the headlines, players like Amazon’s Zoox, May Mobility, Nuro, Motional and Aurora all have designs on driverless transportation in various forms.
This is all to say that with artificial intelligence powering a new era for autonomous cars, your likelihood of encountering one on the roads is now a lot higher than it was even a few years ago.
So why does Waymo’s deployment of autonomous cars in New York feel so different?