No drivers: Robotic cars that anger taxi drivers in New York

It also has a presence in Austin (Texas) and Atlanta (Georgia), although here it operates through the Uber application, and hopes to arrive next year to Washington DC.

Unlike what happens in those places, in New York the state law stipulates that autonomous vehicles need a human trained at the wheel so that it can intervene if necessary. Despite this, Waymo has shared his enthusiasm for being in the streets of the Big Apple. “Your collection time program, we take care of the rest,” he wrote on his X page.

Those who are not happy are taxi drivers, who have promised to battle so as not to share the streets with self -employed cars. The New York taxi drivers federation warned this week to the state authorities that its members will stop going out and paralyze the city if the operation of the robotaxis does not stop.

“These cars are cancer for us,” the president of the guild, Fernando Mateo, who states that the robotaxis threatens the safety of users and the sustenance of 200,000 drivers, including those of the iconic yellow taxis of the city, told the press.

Ascent sector

They had to spend more than 15 years for Waymo to become the leader of the autonomous car sector in the United States. He began testing the vehicles that are driven by San Francisco in 2009 and began offering the taxi service in 2024.

His experience proves the successful advance of this type of technology in various parts of the world. In fact, Israel, Germany, France, the United States, Japan and China already use these vehicles, while more and more companies, such as Tesla, Zoox (Amazon) or Volkswagen invest resources not to be left behind.

But not all of these cars are the same. An autonomous vehicle can have up to five levels of autonomy, in which level five, which is the highest, means complete autonomy. This degree of technology implies that the vehicle can make decisions on its own and can intervene, for example, in case a person crossing untimely, explains Diego Arce, professor of Mechatronics Engineering at the PUCP.

“Normally, the vehicles we see, from Tesla or even commercial cars that offer autonomous pilot capabilities, are usually at a level of autonomy three, which means that, if I put it in autopilot, the vehicle has to notify me in case you have to make a decision and I must be attentive to intervene. Then the responsibility is mine as a driver,” he says to El Comercio.

As with the development of a new technology, the robotaxis that are in the streets without human conductors have gone through several stages of validation. Arce emphasizes that the operation of these vehicles has been successful in the test periods, in which valuable data has been collected.

In New York, the main challenge will be to see how these cars work in the fierce streets of the Big Apple, because these cars are currently circulating in cities without such a high level of congestion. “It is a very critical aspect and I think that is why Waymo wants to validate the functioning of these cars in a highly congested city like New York,” says Arce.

He adds that, as is the case with the advance of any new technology, people can be afraid to climb these vehicles, but that over time they will see that they work. On the concern of taxi drivers, the expert considers that robotic or automation technology does not seek to replace humans, but to make people whose work can be carried out by new technologies have the opportunity to do other higher activities.