--:-- [Sound of a car door opening]
--:-- Johnny Cat: Imagine you call a cab, and it pulls up to the curb in front of your place, and you get in, and you look over the driver, and there is no driver. There's just robots.
--:-- [Sound of a car starting]
--:-- Johnny Cat: Hello, I'm Johnny Cat. Where can I take you tonight?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And you're like, what's going on? This feels unsafe.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But then the robot's like, come with me if you want to live. And so you relent.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And all of a sudden, the robot makes the car go, and you actually get to your destination, but then the robot gets kind of surly. Get out.
--:-- Johnny Cat: What sounds like a distant sci-fi future is now a reality. Robocabs are picking up passengers in San Francisco, and they're coming for you next on Today Explained.
--:-- [Sound of a commercial jingle]
--:-- Johnny Cat: Support for Today Explained comes from BetterHelp.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Let me tell you a true story. Last weekend, I got an email from a listener who wanted to discuss their problems with me. And I said, look, I don't think that this is about me personally. At least I hope it's not.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Why don't you try BetterHelp.com slash Explained? Absolute truth.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Find the one with BetterHelp. The one is not me, guys.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com. That's BetterHelp.com.
--:-- [Sound of a commercial jingle]
--:-- Johnny Cat: This message is brought to you by Apple Card.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Each Apple product, like the iPhone, is thoughtfully designed by skilled designers. The titanium Apple Card is no different.
--:-- Johnny Cat: It's laser etched, has no numbers, and it earns you daily cash on everything you buy, including 3% back on everything at Apple.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Apply for Apple Card on your iPhone in minutes. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
--:-- [Sound of a car horn]
--:-- Johnny Cat: You're listening to Today Explained. I'm Liz Lindqwister, and I'm a data journalist at the San Francisco Standard.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: We focus on local news, politics, and culture in San Francisco. And what's the latest in local news and politics and culture in San Francisco?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Yeah, a lot about robo-taxis.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: People like to say that San Francisco is at the heart of the robo-taxi revolution, and they're practically everywhere in the city now.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You can see them crawling, you know, on every single street.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: So this isn't like an experiment. This is the future. This is reality.
--:-- Johnny Cat: No, it's very real and it's happening right in my backyard.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You know, you'll see them every single day when you're going to work.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I've taken them out to go get drinks with friends and stuff.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And they've become about as ubiquitous as an Uber or Lyft.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I'm sorry. That is like a game changer.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I did not know it was so ubiquitous that people were just taking them out to go get drinks with their friends on a Friday night or whatever.
--:-- Johnny Cat: What was the experience like?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Yeah, I mean, it's very surreal because in a lot of ways, the experience of riding in a robo-taxi is just like an Uber. It's a normal car.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Whether you're in a Waymo, it'll be like a Jaguar.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: A Jaguar robot car?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Yeah, it's very bougie. It feels very fancy and luxurious.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But you'll just be riding through town and it just doesn't have a driver.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You'll see the wheel moving and spinning and the pedals going, but there won't be any driver up front.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Do you tip the robot taxi?
--:-- Johnny Cat: I have never tipped a robot taxi.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Maybe that makes me a stingy rider, but I don't really feel the need to tip the technology.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Does it ask you to tip the robot driver?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: No, it doesn't.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And, you know, in the case of Waymo, it wasn't able to even charge me for rides up until literally Thursday of last week.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Basically, this robotaxi revolution really got kicked into high gear last Thursday because of this big state vote by the California Public Utilities Commission.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Here we are again, San Francisco, about to have four people make a decision on whether or not the city is going to be pimped out by yet another couple of large tech companies.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: There were dozens of people who lined up outside of the Public Utilities Commission meeting on Thursday, and they gave like six hours of public comment to say how much they really disliked these cars or how much they loved them on the other hand.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Waymo and Cruise, they had a pretty big contingent there in support.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving like to support crews because they like to plug that these robotaxis are safer than the average driver.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I am a mother of an incredible child with autism.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Automeness has given me a new hope. My son will grow up to have a greater level of independence and safety.
--:-- Johnny Cat: On the flip side, there's just a whole slew of people that have seen how they've really disrupted life in San Francisco.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: There's been a lot of pushback from city officials, from the fire department, and from just local activists who really don't want to see more cars on the street.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But it still passed. The vote is 3-1.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The motion passes. They basically granted these robo-taxis the ability to expand unlimited through all parts of the city and drive all hours of the day and charge money for it, basically making them like taxis.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You keep mentioning these two companies, Cruise and Waymo.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: We try to ride with Cruise. Owned by GM, Cruise is one of the largest driverless car companies in America, along with its competitor, Google's Waymo.
--:-- Johnny Cat: There's actually a third that has started to test some of its cars in the city and in California. It's called Zooks and it's backed by Amazon.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Zooks? Yeah. Like zucchinis?
--:-- Johnny Cat: No, like Z-O-O-X.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And their claim to fame is they're also doing robo taxis, but their cars don't have like traditional driver controls.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Like they don't have a wheel or pedals. It's just like a box on wheels that drives people through town.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You just get in and put your faith in Uncle Jeff.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Yeah, pretty much.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: So these rides were free for a time.
--:-- Johnny Cat: How much are they now that they're not free?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: It depends on the company because until now, Cruze was actually able to charge for its rides.
--:-- Johnny Cat: That like the confusing part about this is that Different companies had different rules but basically Waymo has released its pricing model
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: They say that there going to be a base fee and that there going to be you know cost per mile cost per time
--:-- Johnny Cat: And the same thing with Cruise, except Cruise has been more public about their base fee of $5 and the additional costs on top of it.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: How is this changing the experience of calling a cab?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Taxi! Taxi! Yo, man! Right here! Right here!
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Are people doing different things in the car now that they're alone?
--:-- Johnny Cat: In some of my reporting, we found that people are starting to do, how do you say, like debaucherous things or maybe some unseemly things in the car.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Yeah, we found a handful of people who had either had sex or hooked up in the back of a robo-taxi because there's just no driver to tell you you can't do that.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And I'd imagine the same goes for alcohol or drugs.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But, you know, the companies obviously don't plug this as something that you should do in their vehicles.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Why not?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Is sex illegal in San Francisco?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Definitely not in robo-taxis, according to some of our more adventurous readers.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Had there been any problems yet with these robo-cars?
--:-- Johnny Cat: That's an understatement, honestly.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The fire chief has reported 55 incidents this year where self-driving taxis interfered with firefighters' duties.
--:-- Johnny Cat: This includes not just unexpected stops in front of our fire stations, not allowing our vehicles to respond to incidents.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: It's pretty crazy. Like, these cars will just get caught.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You know, let's say there's 10 fire trucks coming down to stop a blaze in San Francisco.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The cruise cars just don't know what to do, and they'll just stop.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They'll just kind of brick up on the street and not move.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But the issue with that is that they'll be blocking traffic.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They'll be blocking the emergency vehicles.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The San Francisco Fire Department says they are not against modernization and new technologies, but any vehicle that endangers the people of the city and its visitors and would put its passengers between a fire engine and a fire is not ready for prime time.
--:-- Johnny Cat: So they crumble under pressure.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: They definitely crumble under pressure.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And they were put to the test this Friday.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: San Francisco has this pretty famous music festival called Outside Lands.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Tens of thousands of people attend. It's a really big event for the city.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And, you know, Cruz and Waymo were still operating around the park where the festival was held.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: This was like day one of the new world that we were living in in San Francisco.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Mm-hmm. Day one of the new world, and they had a meltdown.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: What?
--:-- Johnny Cat: A bizarre futuristic scene on Friday night, raising new concerns about robo-taxis in San Francisco.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Basically, as many as a dozen stalled cruise cars, they blocked the streets in a neighborhood in the north part of the city.
--:-- Johnny Cat: This is my Super Bowl.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: After Outside Lands, watching this driverless car that's been stuck in the road for God knows how long, caused mayhem outside of the festival.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Oh my God.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Okay. Call me. Oh no.
--:-- Johnny Cat: The company said that it was because all of the people at Outside Lands disrupted kind of the cell phone signal or the signal that the cruise cars used to operate.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: These vehicles need continuous connectivity back to a central office.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And what the company say is that when they lose the connectivity, the cars stop to ensure safety.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The robots blame the people.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Yeah, the robots blame the people.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: A lot of people said that the robotaxis just couldn't handle the floods of people walking on the street.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They'll just stop.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And it's kind of funny to see because the cars kind of look clueless.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And there's no driver in them either, so you really can't yell at them to move or honk at them either.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I think something that people don't talk enough about, too, with Cruise is that they're such cute little cars that it's kind of, it really truly is comical when they mess up.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But of course it's like all cute and fun until someone gets hurt.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And hearing that these cars just have a meltdown when there's emergency vehicles flying through a crowded street or when there's lots of people around is concerning.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: What this says to me is that when cell phones fail, if there's a power outage, if there's a natural disaster like we just saw in Lahaina, that these cars could congest our streets at the precise time when we would be needing to deploy emergency apparatus.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You know, myself having driven in so many robotaxis at this point, it's most interesting to see humans' relationships to these robot cars and not necessarily the robot cars themselves.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You know, when I'm inside them, I'll see people flicking me off or just like glaring or yelling at me from outside of their cars because they feel so strongly about it.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They're so frustrated with these dinky little robot cars.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: They're also coning the cars.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Coning the cars?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Yeah, so it sounds funny, but it's literally traffic cones that activists are placing on top of robotaxi sensors so that they literally can't move.
--:-- Johnny Cat: No one's in it.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Marking autonomous vehicles as traffic hazards.
--:-- Johnny Cat: The group Safe Street Rebels is placing cones on crews in Waymo cars as a way to temporarily stop them.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: They want these cars off the road permanently.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You know, the city has even taken it into their own hands where like a firefighter in an emergency situation, they coned a cruise car because they didn't want to keep moving into an emergency situation.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Wow.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Even the firefighters are getting in on it.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: So it hasn't been a totally smooth transition, but that's sort of to be expected, I imagine.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And I mean, I think the big question now, too, is where this is going to fit in in the broader transportation landscape of not just San Francisco, but the state and the country.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Like we have Ubers and Lyfts that still exist.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But I imagine a lot of those drivers are frustrated that there are all these self-driving cars that might take their positions.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Activists told the CPUC this is not only a threat to safety, but to jobs.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And L.A. is next. If it passes here, it's also going to be going to Los Angeles.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Thousands of taxi cab workers in Los Angeles are going to lose their job.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: It is going to be a real detrimental development for the people of California.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And then, of course, there's transit problems with funding in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Our public transportation system is really struggling.
--:-- Johnny Cat: So for another car option private option to show up like this you know that gets a lot of folks really frustrated
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Like is this the right use of our time of our priorities of our funding I don't know
--:-- Johnny Cat: Right Is the answer more cars Yeah
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And that's a lot of the criticism is that San Francisco is a dense city.
--:-- Johnny Cat: It's a small city.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Does it really need thousands more of these robotaxis?
--:-- Johnny Cat: It sounds like what you're saying is that people ought to get used to the idea of being driven around by robots.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I mean, I think the CPUC vote basically said that, right?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Like, whether or not San Franciscans like it, RoboJaxies are here to stay, and now they have unlimited access to the city and can charge money for it.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And, you know, there are a lot of people excited about it.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Waymo likes to say that they have a waitlist of, like, over 100,000 people.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: That's a lot of people that are excited to drive their cars.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Or it's just 100,000 people who are really excited about having sex in a robot car.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I mean, you said it, not me.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I mean, at the end of the day, it's definitely a novelty to try out one of these cars.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: My parents are going to come visit in a month, and that'll be the first thing I do is show them the future in a robo-taxi.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Liz Lindqwister, SanFranciscoStandard, sfstandard.com.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Even if you're not going to San Francisco, you could still experience the robo-taxi meltdown. That is in a minute on Today Explained.
--:-- [Sound of a commercial jingle]
--:-- Johnny Cat: Support for today's show comes from Adio.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: What is Adio?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Adio is an AI-native customer relationship management system built specifically for the next era of companies.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: They say it's extremely powerful, adapts to your unique data structures and scales with any business model.
--:-- Johnny Cat: According to Adio, Adio takes less than a minute to set up, and within seconds you will have your email and calendars synced.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You'll see all your relationships in a fully-fledged platform, they say, all enriched with that actionable data.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And they say you can build AI-powered automations and use its research agent to tackle some of your most complex processes to seize so that you can focus on what matters, building your company.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You can join industry leaders such as Flatfile, Replicate, Modal, and so much more.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You can go to adio.com slash todayexplained to get 15% off your first year.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: That's A-T-T-I-O dot com slash todayexplained.
--:-- [Sound of a car door opening]
--:-- Johnny Cat: We'll see you next time.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Visit Sierra.ai to learn more.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Where am I?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You're in a Johnny can.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I mean, what am I doing here?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I'm sorry. Would you please rephrase the question?
--:-- Johnny Cat: How did I get in this taxi?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The door opened.
--:-- Johnny Cat: You got in?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Today, Explained is back.
--:-- [Sound of a car horn]
--:-- Johnny Cat: We're now joined by Andrew Hawkins, transportation editor at The Verge, to ask if robo-taxis are just a San Francisco thing?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Not at all.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: San Francisco, I think the most high-profile market where the cars are operating, but Phoenix actually preceded San Francisco by many years.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And the Phoenix area has been Waymo's playing ground, its stomping ground for the last, since I think 2017, actually.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Cruise actually is now testing its vehicles in the Phoenix area as well.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Where else are they heading?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: So there's a number of markets that both companies have said that they plan on eventually or hopefully launching their robo-taxi services.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Austin, Texas is a prominent one.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Cruise and Waymo are both testing their vehicles there.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Waymo is testing in Los Angeles and has said that it plans on eventually launching a robo-taxi service in L.A.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Ready to ride without a driver in SoCal?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Are you ready?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: The company.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And they've been all over the place, obviously.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: They've been up in Washington State.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They've been down in Miami.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: There have been some testing in Pittsburgh.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: There's even a few vehicles out mapping the streets in New York City.
--:-- Johnny Cat: New York City!
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Wait, New York City's home to lots of people, and I hear these cars get confused when they're surrounded by people and their cell phones.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Yeah, that is the case.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: So it'll be interesting to see how your average New Yorker takes it when the robots start to come up.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Hey! I'm walking here! I'm walking here!
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But yeah, as of now, I think Waymo's got a couple cars that are just mapping the streets of New York, so they're manually driven, not autonomous.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But, you know, when you start to map, that's a pretty strong indication that eventually you plan on having some sort of commercial service in the future.
--:-- Johnny Cat: It sounds like this is being scaled up kind of quickly.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: It's been a while coming, and I think the predictions have kind of outpaced the technology.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: So we've been told, I think, for a number of years that self-driving cars are coming.
--:-- Johnny Cat: They're going to take over our roads.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: We're not going to have any human-powered vehicles at all in the future.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And I think a lot of those predictions really kind of have not panned out exactly.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And we're starting to see how complicated it is to try to roll out this technology, especially in a very dense urban environment like San Francisco.
--:-- Johnny Cat: To say nothing of New York, I can imagine from the ground, if you're on the streets in San Francisco, and all of a sudden you wake up and there's hundreds of these self-driving cars that are out there, it probably seems pretty quick to those people.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: I think when people hear that they're self-driving robot cars in San Francisco, they probably go like, oh yeah, it makes sense.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: You know, San Francisco, that's where this stuff happens.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But how much pushback are these cars encountering in cities like, you know, Austin, Los Angeles, you mentioned Washington State, New York City?
--:-- Johnny Cat: Yeah, it's kind of been a mixed bag, I would say.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: I think in California, there's a pretty strong regulatory system in place in terms of autonomous vehicles when they are testing and when they want to apply for commercial service.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: That doesn't exist in most other states.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: In fact, in Arizona, the state has pretty much given the companies free reign to test and to launch commercial operations when and where they want to.
--:-- Johnny Cat: There's very little oversight.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: So that sort of the difference I think between California and some of these other states where these companies are wanting to launch.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Much looser regulatory frameworks.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And there's a power vacuum at the federal level.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Self-driving cars are already being tested in at least 25 states.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But with no federal regulations, America doesn't have a national roadmap for safety guidelines.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: It's really left to the states to kind of create their own rulebook for this technology.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And you're seeing that there's like a lot of diversity there.
--:-- Johnny Cat: And we know the data says that some of these self-driving cars, maybe all of these self-driving cars, are safer than human-operated vehicles.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But when you hear these stories about these cars freezing up in emergency situations, you can't help but feel like they could also drive you off of a cliff.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Is there anyone in any of these states saying maybe we should slow this down and wait for this technology to improve?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Well, I don't mean to call into question your authority on this, Sean, but I would like to push back slightly on what you just said, because the data actually hasn't proven that the vehicles are safer than human driven ones.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Oh, good.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: It's easy to sort of make that assumption because the marketing makes sense.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: When the companies come out and say the Waymo driver never gets drowsy.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: It doesn't get distracted. It is something that is attentive all the time.
--:-- Johnny Cat: That makes sense to people, you know, because humans are very prone to doing all those things.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But the way that we measure safety when it comes to vehicle operation and driving, it's usually in the hundreds of millions of miles.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And these vehicles have not driven that much.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: They've driven millions of miles, but they are nowhere close to approaching hundreds of millions of miles, which is the sort of the metric that we use to measure the safety of human driving.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Would you say the cars perform as well or better than a human driver?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: I would say that I really trust this technology and that when you're in the car, you feel entirely safe and it's a great user experience.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: So you're saying we should remain highly skeptical of these robo cars and this technology?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: I think when it comes to safety, 100 percent.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I think you can make a lot of assumptions that it sounds good on the surface.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And I think the initial data that they've released actually backs them up to a certain extent.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: But like I said, there still is a long way to go before we can actually state unequivocally that these cars are safer than human-driven ones.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But in the meantime, it seems like people are really excited about them.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Some people are. Here's the real PSD resistance. Driverless cars, baby!
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: The year is 2023.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And it shouldn't be discounted.
--:-- Johnny Cat: A lot of people in the disabled community are very excited because for their entire lives, they've been very limited in the types of mobility options that they have.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: If you have visual impairment, you can't drive yourself, you have to rely on maybe Uber and Lyft.
--:-- Johnny Cat: That's not a very reliable thing for them most of the time.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Taking public transportation can be really tough.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: In California, when they were having this vote about whether to expand the services, so many folks from the disability community came and testified and said that this is something that they want in their lives.
--:-- Johnny Cat: This is Pumpkin. She is a service animal.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: She is a guide dog.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Her service she performs, she guides me.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: I am totally blind.
--:-- Johnny Cat: In the last month, I have had three Uber drivers very explicitly deny Pumpkin access to their vehicles simply because she is a service animal.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: This is not something that an autonomous vehicle is going to do.
--:-- Johnny Cat: It would be just a huge advantage to them to have this type of mode of transportation.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: So I don't think that that can be easily dismissed.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: I know for people like you, this has been a long time coming.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But I mean, I live in a somewhat major American city, and it's still amazing to me to think that if I were in San Francisco, I could walk out to the street and potentially get hit by a robot car.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Like, that's a trip to me.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Do you think this is just a moment of adjustment before we dive into the future?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Are we kind of here? Is this the moment?
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Yeah, I mean, so I talked to a lot of experts in this, and what they tell me sort of time and time again that this is really kind of the very beginning of a potential revolution in transportation, but it's not going to happen overnight.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But it will happen with incremental, evolutionary, over a long period of time.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And I think that that's why you have to be skeptical of those predictions about safety, and like, this is going to sort of take over all driving altogether.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: And the folks that I talk to, they compare it to other big changes that happen in history.
--:-- Johnny Cat: So when we first started installing things like indoor plumbing or a nationwide electrical grid with lines throughout homes and buildings or bringing natural gas to people's kitchens or building roads and highways for transportation, all of those were major societal changes.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: And they caused huge inconveniences and discomfort for a lot of people.
--:-- Johnny Cat: But we can't live without them today.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: Can the same be said for autonomous vehicles?
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Well, I think it's way too early to tell.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: But I do think that there is a lot of potential for both inconveniences and also sort of revolutionary mobility for a lot of people.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Andrew Hawkins, you can read him at TheVerge.com.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Our program today was produced by Avishay Artsy.
--:-- Andrew Hawkins: We were edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by David Herman, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Johnny Cat: I'm Sean Ramos from the rest of the Today Explained team includes co-host Noelle King, executive producer Miranda Kennedy, managing editor Matthew Collette, Halima Shah, Siona Petros, Miles Bryan, Hadi Mawagdi, Amanda Llewellyn, John Ahrens, Victoria Chamberlain, extra help from Patrick Boyd, music from Breakmaster Cylinder, on the radio thanks to WNYC, a show that exists thanks to the Vox Media Podcast Network.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: It's okay. Right here.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Thank you for taking Johnny Cab.
--:-- Liz Lindqwister: Thank you.
--:-- Johnny Cat: Hope you enjoyed the ride.
