That article was interesting. I've been a truck driver, with recurring jobs throughout San Francisco, and can attest to how nerve-racking it can be. In order to drive trucks there successfully, you have to know the roads really well, as your GPS is often worthless (so many different rules, changing conditions, unpredictable drivers/cyclists/pedestrians, as well as truck-specific restrictions). From a pedestrian safety perspective, I really appreciate that there are companies that are prioritizing San Francisco as a testing ground.

I still think Seattle is more difficult to drive in. The streets are narrower (most residential streets are two way, but only wide enough for one car width, requiring drivers to negotiate with other drivers on how to proceed). There are far more 3,5,6 and even 7 way intersections[0]. Just as many hills as San Francisco, but the several poorly-intersecting street grids give the hills much worse visibility. And I'm willing to bet we have way more construction than San Francisco.

[0] https://vimeo.com/124481186

I never thought about car companies being able to use their dealerships for their fleets. That will actually be a pretty huge advantage in smaller towns where there won't be enough business to have the cars driving continuously.

Aren't they still working out the actual software... To make all of this work...hardware wise they are ahead but people around here have been tooting the GM horn just because they can produce cars.

They also have invested in Lyft for $500 Million USD. See https://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyft-1billion-gm

>...but General Motors can utilize the real estate and expertise of it's existing network of dealerships, which can save them from a great deal of capital investment as Robotaxis dissemintate.

I was involved in a project at a major US auto maker where they wanted to utilize spare capacity at the dealers on something similar to what you are discussing. In this case, we would pay the dealers to utilize that capacity.

In some states, the dealer networks are large, politically very influential, and are not inclined to allow anything that will disrupt the status quo of selling and leasing cars. They absolutely had their hands around the throat of the auto maker and forced us to go another route just because they saw what we were trying to do could possibly change their income flow in some small way.

In theory, GM has the infrastructure and is making the right acquisitions. In practice the vast majority of the company is entrenched in selling and leasing cars and many people in the company don't have the imagination to see the world differently. GM has a lot of internal and external politics to overcome before they are successful with autonomous cars and Robotaxis.