Robotaxi Causes Traffic Jam After Attempting To Drive Through Construction Site; Elon Musk Responds

In sci-fi movies, driverless robotaxis are fairly commonplace and a standard part of a futuristic society. Unfortunately for us, reality doesn’t quite work that way. While the concept of an autonomous robotaxi service sounds very cool, it is still in its infancy stage, as proven by the number of incidents they have been experiencing while attempting to recognize police officers, emergency situations, and other unorthodox situations.

Why Did This Robotaxi Cause More Traffic?

Recently, a driverless Chevrolet Bolt under GM’s Cruise robotaxi service was spotted experiencing a bit of trouble while attempting to drive through an intersection that was under construction in downtown San Francisco. Because the Bolt failed to recognize that the road it wanted to drive down was closed off, it found itself stuck in the middle of the intersection, causing additional stress to the construction workers, the passenger, and other nearby drivers for blocking traffic.

Elon Musk Responds

While this isn’t the first time a robotaxi caused a bit of trouble on public roads, what made it particularly interesting is that Tesla CEO Elon Musk decided to chime in on the video shared on Twitter. The video, which was originally shared by Tesla Owners Silicon was retweeted by Steven Mark Ryan, who described Tesla’s driverless AI far more superior than that of GM’s seen in the video. “Generalized autonomy (see Tesla) is 100x harder than the brittle ‘self-driving’ tech we see here,” wrote Steven. “Help Daddy, I’m scared. What do I do? Come get me.”

Other commenters went on to describe how Tesla’s self-driving system “will scale widely because it is intelligent,” meaning it is able to correctly interpret what it detects in reality and react.

Musk responded, saying, “Yeah, extremely brittle to local conditions & doesn’t scale.”

Yeah, extremely brittle to local conditions & doesn’t scale

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2023

This isn’t the first time GM’s robotaxi service found itself being “that guy” on the streets of San Francisco. Last year, one Chevy Bolt went on the lam after failing to respond to a police officer’s commands after an attempt was made to pull it over. In another incident, two Chevy Bolts found themselves tangled in downed electrical wires and caution tape after a storm.

According to Musk, Tesla will license its patented Autopilot/Full Self-Driving technology out to other automakers to use in their own vehicles, rather than rely on their own. He also mentions that Tesla will open its Supercharger network to other companies, allowing competitor EVs to charge at its stations.

Tesla aspires to be as helpful as possible to other car companies.

We made all our patents freely available several years ago.

Now, we are enabling other companies to use our Supercharger network.

Also happy to license Autopilot/FSD or other Tesla technology.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2023