"The Rise of Autonomous Vehicles" (Post Two)

Have you ever dreamed of getting in a taxi in the midst of a pandemic that requires no driver and is automated by the autonomous vehicle features? Well, look no further, we now have vehicles that drive without drivers to drive us to designated locations. In an article called “Waymo and Cruise dominated autonomous testing in California in the first year of the pandemic,” written by Andrew J. Hawkins and published by The Verge on Feb 11, 2021, 10:52 am EST, talks in great detail about how the testing of self-driving autonomous vehicles in California have declined due to the pandemic but nonetheless, still significantly improving. Hawkins stated that the two major companies that were still test-driving autonomous vehicles were Waymo and Cruise. Hawkins further stated what the Department of Motor Vehicles reported, which was that there was a “decrease of 800,00 miles” from the previous year of autonomous vehicles on public roads due to the pandemic. According to Hawkins, Waymo has now received approval to start a Robo taxi service in California. Hawkins also reported the data that Waymo released of disengagement (when the driver has to take over the self-driving vehicle for safety reasons), has improved from “0.076 per 1,000 miles in 2019 to 0.033 per 1,000” self-driven miles in 2020. He also mentioned how Cruises’ disengagement has improved from “0.082” from last year to “0.033 per 1,000 miles this year.” Lastly, Hawkins’ ended his article by mentioning that Apple has been secretly working on a car for years and has doubled its mileage to “18,805 from 2019”, which leaves us with the question, can Apple really survive and thrive in the self-driving autonomous vehicle industry?

From just analyzing the website and digging through its content, I would classify this article to be in the credible section because Hawkins included lots of statistical facts that back up this article including data from reliable sources such as the DMV. One thing that made me skeptical is that the majority of the other sources Hawkins included were from his previous articles, which might not be the most reliable resources and so it doesn't really prove his credibility. He is a senior reporter from The Verge, reporting about transportation such as Uber, Lyft, autonomous vehicles, etc. He was also a writer from Crain’s New York business and the New York Daily News where he wrote about politics. He has his name, email, and the date of when the article was published on the top left side of the article. Furthermore, I looked up his Twitter page and found out that he is verified and has a reasonably good amount of followers, so many trusts the words that come out of his mouth. This article does have the official approval of the company Waymo as Hawkins himself tested one of Waymos self-driving Robo-taxi. He went to Phoenix, Arizona to test out one of Waymo’s driverless cars and has a video about it on The Verge website. I think this article is a little biased towards the push for the success of autonomous vehicles because they don’t talk much about the things that have gone wrong with self-driving vehicles. I think this article was intended for a general public audience rather than a scholarly audience or experts. An article from NYT also had a similar article to this so I’d say the content provided is credible. The website itself has a podcasts section where they talk directly to the CEO of companies of interest such as CEO of Evil Geniuses, Nicole LaPointe Jameson, and CEO of Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown, to only name the few featured on the podcast section.

In conclusion, you shouldn’t always believe what you see on the media especially if it’s not a well-known source but after doing extensive research on this article, the author, and The Verge, organization behind this article, I would say this article is credible. I would believe in what Andrew J. Hawkins says when it comes to self-driving autonomous vehicles because he seems to get his evidence right from the main source. Hawkins himself is a very optimistic individual when it comes to self-driving autonomous vehicles and so it’s understandable why he brought up the good sides of it. He currently works with the organization The Verge and considering that he is a well-respected individual and many people follow him, he wouldn’t want to team up with an organization that can jeopardize his reputation, so that’s why I believe he and his article is credible.