By Christin Evans, HANC Board
At the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council’s September meeting, the first hour centered on the recent appearance of numerous automated vehicles emblazoned with corporate logos. Representatives of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), and the companies Waymo, Cruise and Zoox were on hand to answer our community’s questions about what impact these new vehicles have.
In advance of the meeting we asked the companies to come prepared to answer these questions and below are what we heard their representatives say.
- How many vehicles are operating on our city streets?
You’d think that this would be a simple question to answer. None of the companies would disclose the number of vehicles they have operating in San Francisco. Instead they fell back on generalities… our fleet varies in size from week to week. But from the conversation and visible counts we know that hundreds of vehicles are already here with Waymo demonstrating the most aggressive growth with its launch of the “trusted tester” program allowing members of the public to apply to test ride the automated vehicles
- What are the safety measures your companies employ to ensure no injuries?
Both SFMTA and the company representatives were quick to distinguish the current AVs from the widely covered “driver-assisted” Tesla vehicles which have had a number of high profile accidents. One such accident included a Florida man who died in 2016 while watching a Harry Potter movie on a portable DVD player, over-relying on the Tesla’s driver assist technology to pilot the vehicle.
While current Automated Vehicles currently have safety drivers behind a steering wheel, one of the companies present said that new robot cars are being developed which will entirely remove the steering wheel and braking system. The idea being the vehicles will soon be used as ride sharing vehicles and will maximize the seating capacity and remove the potential for any rider interference with the vehicle’s operation. (see photo)
Zoox is developing a rideshare vehicle which will remove the steering wheel
The Cruise representative stated that the goal of Automated Vehicles was not to totally eliminate vehicle accidents but rather to reduce the severity of the crashes and aim to eliminate accident fatalities. Both careful regulation of the speed of the vehicle and ensuring high sensor responsiveness through the company’s technologies would lead to lower accident numbers, the AV representative said.
- What is the climate impact of your company's vehicles driving around what seems to be all day long?
For Waymo who has been operating a ridehailing service since October 2020 in Phoenix Eastern suburbs with hybrid Chrysler minivans which get ~30 miles to the gallon, safety appears to be the first priority with environmental impacts a distant second consideration. Notable about the fleet of vehicles they’ve equipped with their automated vehicle technology in San Francisco are all-electric Jaguar SUVs which get 80 miles per gallon, a notable upgrade.
Cruise, who has General Motors as a significant investor, received permission to use driverless vehicles after our meeting at the end of September and uses Chevrolet electric Bolt EV vehicles which boasts city mileage the equivalent of ~120 miles per gallon.
- What is the congestion impact of your company's vehicles?
None of the companies wanted to touch this question and noted they are a relatively small presence on San Francisco streets currently. However the SFMTA representative Julia Friedlander expressed strong concerns that like ridehailing services Uber & Lyft which doubled congestion in certain areas of the city, that the EV ridehailing model is not significantly different and that we should expect they will add more cars to SF’s roads.
While the automated vehicle companies said they have the capacity to serve up to 3 to 4 passengers per trip, the reality is that most of their passengers would have opted for public transportation such as a Muni bus which has a much greater passenger capacity per vehicle trip Friedlander said.
A visualization of the amount of space a bus (left) vs individual vehicles (right) carrying the same number of passengers take up on a city street
In conclusion, San Francisco lacks the regulatory ability to significantly restrict Automated Vehicles since state legislation has put controls in the hands of Sacramento bureaucrats. As the AV services grow and expand, we are certain there will be significant concerns which arise in the urban areas where their ridehailing services are of greatest demand. HANC will continue to monitor the expansion of robot cars in the city and will surely have a follow up meeting in the near future as San Francisco gains more experience with AV vehicles on our city streets.