Waymo barrels through a pothole, Lyft eyes robotaxis and riders pay more. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

Waymos went full speed through a pothole. Road & Track reported:

Waymo's driverless fleet of Jaguar I-Paces tend to perform exceedingly well in normal driving situations — but a pothole in the middle of a San Francisco intersection found a weak point in its programming.

Video from local TV station ABC 7 News Bay Area posted to YouTube last week shows one of Waymo's self-driving car absolutely sending it through a large pothole that formed at Lombard and Gough Street. The water-filled holes in the road — estimated to be a five-by-four-foot gap — look suspicious enough that a (reasonably intelligent) human would pause before driving through at full speed … but they probably just looked like big puddles to the sensor and LiDAR-festooned Waymo vehicles.

The news report claims the autonomous vehicle caught on camera was just one of several Waymos ABC 7 saw slamming across the hole before construction crews could properly block it off from traffic. As depicted in the report, you can see that crews fully coned off the area eventually — which is likely all that needed to happen to keep Waymos from trying to barge through.

Lyft is rolling out robotaxis by 2026. Reuters reported:

Feb 10 (Reuters) — U.S. ride-hailing firm Lyft (LYFT.O), opens new tab plans to launch “as soon as 2026” fully autonomous robotaxis in Dallas, powered by Mobileye's technology (MBLY.O), opens new tab, CEO David Risher said on Monday.

Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with experience managing fleets, will own and finance the Mobileye-equipped vehicles that will show up on the Lyft app, Risher said in a post on X.

Massachusetts is eyeing a $15 airport fee for riders. Boston Globe reported:

Currently, Massport charges ride apps a $3.25 fee for pickups or drop-offs at Logan, which the ride-hailing giants then pass onto customers' fares. But the agency that oversees the airport is discussing hiking those fees to $5.50 each way starting in July, and then raising them to $7.50 each starting in July 2027, according to materials presented at a Massport board committee meeting on Wednesday and obtained by the Globe.

In fiscal year 2024, which ended in June, ride app drop-off fees alone generated $15.6 million of revenue for Massport, up from $13.7 million the year prior, according to Massport's annual financial report. Logan Airport ride-app pickups and drop-offs increased about 14 percent in the same period, the report said.

Josh Gold, the senior director of public policy and communications at Uber, said he was concerned that the eventual $15 roundtrip surcharge would batter consumers' wallets and cost Uber drivers reliable business. He also questioned why ride-hailing apps face higher surcharges than taxis or personal vehicles, which pay no fees to come and go and are, Massport's presentation says, the “most impactful mode to congestion.”

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