2024 was the year robotaxis proved they are here to stay

Even experienced drivers can be forgiven for missing a roundabout exit once or twice, but a disoriented robotaxi in Arizona did it 36 times… in a row. While Waymo taxis are among the most advanced autonomous vehicles on the road today, in a video posted earlier this month on X, a confused AV appears to be quite literally stuck in a loop. Sorry I'm late, my WAYMO did 37 laps in the roundabout pic.twitter.com/GSR4sqChV2 And yet, even with blunders like these, there were more vehicles driving themselves this year than ever before. Once cordoned off to a few test tracks and small patches of land in Mountain View, AVs are now rearing their sensors-flapping heads in more than a dozen US cities. Tens of millions of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians are learning how to coexist amongst these machines while their shared roads serve as real-world test-beds for full-scale AV deployment.