A Quick Report Card on Self-Driving Cars

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I was just reading Atrios’s latest barb against Elon Musk’s “self-driving” Tesla—a subject we agree on—and got to wondering how Waymo is doing these days. I consider them the real bellwether for self-driving technology, but it’s been a few months since I checked in on them.

Long story short, Waymo announced last month that they’re building a second technical center in Chandler, Arizona, which will allow them to expand their commercial fleet. However, they’re still in pilot mode, with a safety driver behind the wheel at all times.

That’s about it. Steady but slow progress, and no one has died.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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