AI Tech Causes Taxi Problems That Should Make CRE Nervous

Taxis aren’t part of CRE, but they do often play a big role in commercial real estate, with getting rides to or from retail or dining or businesses or apartments. When things go wrong with taxis, it has an impact. And that’s been happening over the last week or so in the context of robotaxis.

Cruise is a division of General Motors that has been making self-driving vehicles to act as robotaxis. Back in 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into the company because of reports of some crashes involving the devices being rear-ended.

According to an Ars Technica report at the time, in a few cases, some of the units would hit the brakes hard if another vehicle was coming up from behind, resulting in that other vehicle rear-ending the robotaxi. There were two injuries in three accidents.

The investigation has been active since then. What has finally brought it to an end, according to a Reuters report, was that Cruise agreed to recall nearly 1,200 vehicles. Although the company has said it didn’t agree with the need for a recall, it added “We are committed to building trust and increasing transparency with respect to autonomous vehicle technology,” a Cruise spokesperson told Reuters.

The other problem was noise. Late at night, a group of driverless Waymo (owned by Google parent Alphabet) robotaxis started honking at one another late at night in San Francisco, according to a local NBC station. This has happened more than once, typically around four or five in the morning as a number of taxis were driving into and out of a parking lot. Neighbors have been filming the events, documenting them for a growing online audience.

According to what a company spokesperson told the NBC station, “We’ve updated the software, so our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward.” But the honking continued in an adjacent cul-de-sac. After which the company again said that it found another fix for the continuing problem.

One of the residents said that she liked having the vehicles there, as many of the people living in the area use the service, but that they really would like to sleep in a bit more.

For the CRE industry, it’s important to remember that a) people in tech often talk about working fast and breaking things to improve what they’re trying to do, and b) these new technologies, especially the artificial intelligence-powered ones, can do things that take everyone by surprise. Even if you aren’t directly using the technology in question, if it’s near buildings, it could have an impact on tenants and visitors, meaning it’s important to keep an eye on it all. At least you can understand why people might be calling you upset.