Suburbs already have driverless taxis, but San Francisco is still playing catch-up

San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood is notoriously tricky for any driver. Narrow roads, gobs of tourists, steep inclines, double-parked delivery vans, never-ending construction, and maddening six-way intersections run rampant there. Take away the human driver, and you've got a potential recipe for disaster. 

Nevertheless, that's what Zoox, a self-driving startup, is attempting. But instead of going to the sunny, wide boulevards of Arizona or Silicon Valley, it's focusing on navigating through the windy roads of a dense, packed urban area. It's going to take a while to really get there, especially with Zoox's vision of a robo-taxi service in a made-for-self-driving vehicle that's still in development. Read more...